What really lives at the ocean floor? What lives in the sand, rocks and water at the very bottom? Welcome to this episode all about those organisms! We're chatting with Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser, a benthic ecologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. A benthic community is made up of animals who live at the bottom of the ocean. The bottom of the ocean may not be what you're thinking - it isn't necessarily the deepest depths. It could be right below the surface of the water, as long as there is ocean floor, we'll call it benthic!

Kirstin's biggest curiosities lie in island communities. Island communities are not just what you think of - tropical islands where the sun is always shining. For benthic communities an island can be a rock, isolated at the bottom of the ocean. Kirstin seeks to answer the question of "Who is living at the bottom, and how did you get here?"

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