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Did you know that the USS Merrimac is just one of around three million known shipwrecks spread across the world's oceans? Rachel Mugge and team wanted to find out how wooden shipwrecks affect the distribution of microbes on the seafloor. The researchers studied two wooden shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico. They placed pieces of pine and oak between 0 and 200 meters away from each shipwreck to collect samples of microbes. They found that pine and oak pieces placed about 125 meters from the shipwrecks had the most species of microbes on them.