Growth Rate and Biological Investigations of Marine Phytoplankton using DNA-Cell Cycle Analysis

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To understand the importance of various species of phytoplankton in the marine food web, it is vital to have a good method to estimate species-specific growth rates. In his previous award, Carpenter developed a method to do this, based on the diel cycle of DNA synthesis. This award marks the first step in applying this method to the field and examines simple ecological questions such as whether organisms in the deep chlorophyll maximum can achieve a division rate comparable to that of near-surface phytoplankton by adapting to a low-light, nutrient-rich environment. Laboratory research in this projects stresses improving the existing method by estimating the magnitude of the errors under situations violating original assumptions used.