Equipment Acquisitions in Support of Research at the Alabama Marine Environmental Sciences Consortium

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The Marine Environmental Sciences Consortium (MESC) is Alabama's maine science research and education center. Founded in 1971, MESC includes 21 colleges and universities and is part of the state's system of higher education. Teaching and research activities of the MESC take place principally at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL), a 36 acre campus located on Dauphin Island, 30 miles south of Mobile, Alabama. Here resident MESC faculty, scientists from MESC member schools and visiting investigators carry out individual and cooperative research efforts. Research activities at the MESC are currently centered on understanding (1) the relative importance of salt marsh, seagrass and unvegetated bottom habitats to the production of fishes and invertebrates in nearshore waters in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and on (2) exchanges of energy between estuaries and the open Gulf waters, with special attention given to understanding the influence of estuarine waters on the productivity of offshore "hard bottom" fishing grounds. To further enhance the growing research program at the MESC and to stimulate additional interactions with visiting scientists, this project provides funds for the purchase of a Carbon/Nitrogen/Sulfur (CNS) analyzer, a high-speed refrigerated centrifuge, and high capacity ultra-low temperature freezer. These items are essential to the continued growth of the process-oriented component of the MESC research program. The CNS analyzer is indispensable for measuring the total carbon, nitrogen and sulfur composition of particulate organic matter. The addition of CNS capabilities will facilitate the development of projects aimed at understanding the relative importance of natural inorganic and organic nutrient additions to estuaries compared with those caused by man's activities. The addition of the refrigerated centrifuge and ultra-low freezer will make possible several pending research projects designed to examine chemically-mediated responses during larval recruitment and feeding in estuarine and near-coastal environments.