The High-Pressure Respirometry System (HPRS) and the High-Pressure Mobile Laboratory
Our latest high-pressure mobile lab. (Steel Giraffe LLC)
The Girguis Lab’s high-pressure mobile facility, which is a one-of-a-kind portable research lab that allows us to keep deep-sea animals and microbes alive at in-situ conditions. (Peter Girguis)
To date, only a few studies have quantified metabolic rates of deep-sea microbes or animals. Fewer still have made these measurements at environmentally relevant conditions, with the appropriate in situ chemistry, temperature, and pressure.
The Girguis Lab is home to the high-pressure respirometry system (HPRS), which allows the maintenance of microbial communities and animals at in situ temperatures, pressures, and chemistry, as well as the direct measurement of metabolic rates. The HPRS consists of three sub-systems: A) a gas and seawater equilibration system to re-create the chemical conditions in situ, B) high-pressure pumps and high-pressure low-through aquaria to maintain the (micro)organisms at in situ pressures and temperatures, and C) a downstream system that allows manual or automated sampling for geochemical analyses and biological preservation. Aquaria pressures are maintained via spring-loaded backpressure valves. Vessel inflows and effluents can be sampled and analyzed for changes in dissolved gas concentrations.
To enable more rapid mobilization of the HPRS as well as associated analytical instruments, the entire system is housed in a 20-foot shipping container-turned-laboratory that can be shipped around the world and loaded onto research vessels for use at sea. The high-pressure mobile laboratory is equipped with a refrigeration system to enable maintenance of the vessels at the relevant in situ temperatures.
