From The Field To The Lab: Determining How Microbes Affect the Fate Of Shallow-Water Shipwrecks

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Ecology of Underwater Cultural Heritage: From Microbial Communities to Macrofauna", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Microbial biofilms can contribute to both the protection and deterioration of wrecks through biofouling and biocorrosion processes. By conducting both lab-based studies and field explorations we aim to identify wreck-associated microbial communities and determine how they affect wreck integrity over short and long-time scales. A study of the shallow-water, steel-hulled “Pappy Lane” (PAS0001) WW2-era landing craft shipwreck indicated that the wreck-associated microbes were similar across multiple regions of the ship. Both iron-oxidizers and sulfate-reducers were widespread suggesting potential for biocorrosion across the wreck. Biofilms attached to deployed metal coupons indicated that metal type and seasonality influenced colonization of microbes and they can change over time and space. Lastly, a growth-based method has been developed to co-culture corrosion-causing sulfate-reducers and iron-oxiders. Lab experiments indicate that conditions other than oxygen may drive their interactions. Ultimately, studying how microbes attached to shallow-water wrecks will aid our understanding of their role in long-term integrity.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025   •
• The Ecology of Underwater Cultural Heritage: From Microbial Communities to Macrofauna

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow