To the tune of Old Maui
Words by Dominik Fretz and Cat Vendl
Go to Randy Dandy Shanties main page
Rolling through the necrobiome, me boys,
Rolling through the necrobiome,
With sixteen S to help us assess,
Rolling through the necrobiome!
It’s a complex life in the microbial strife
That dolphins undergo,
And we sequence with care each sample we share
To learn what lies below.
For we’re hunting genes with se-quencing machines
Our primers strong and free,
And we’ll analyze how bacteria thrive
In post-mortality.
Rolling through the necrobiome, me boys,
Rolling through the necrobiome,
With sixteen S to help us assess,
Rolling through the necrobiome!
Thirty-two in all answered science’s call,
In Alabama’s bay,
From adults so strong to perinate young,
Their microbes on display.
Four sampling sites tell their tales at night,
Through D-NA decree,
From blowhole to skin, the stories within,
Of their di-versityyyyy.
Rolling through the necrobiome, me boys,
Rolling through the necrobiome,
With sixteen S to help us assess,
Rolling through the necrobiome!
Thirty-two in all answered science’s call,
In Alabama’s bay,
The body location showed variation,
More than all the rest,
While age played its role in the microbial scroll,
As nature thought it best.
The sex didn’t sway what the data would say,
Nor de-compo-sition’s key,
As we mapped each clan in the bacterial plan,
Through ge-nomic seas.
Rolling through the necrobiome, me boys,
Rolling through the necrobiome,
With sixteen S to help us assess,
Rolling through the necrobiome!
Thirty-two in all answered science’s call,
In Alabama’s bay,
So raise your hand for the research band,
At Dauphin Island’s shore,
Where each sequence read helps understand the dead,
As ne’er we did before.
These findings we share with those who dare
To probe mortality,
While bacteria show how the changes flow,
In life’s great mystery.
Rolling through the necrobiome, me boys,
Rolling through the necrobiome,
With sixteen S to help us assess,
Rolling through the necrobiome
Go to Randy Dandy Shanties main page
Written for a conference of Marine Biologists in the USA in 2025. Dom is pictured on the left hand side of this very grainy image. With Dan Werndly and Callum Gough at Arcadia in June 2025
