International Postdoctoral Fellows Program: Species Assemblages of Leptocephali in the South Pacific

小米勒9402394 该奖项是根据国际初级研究员和博士后研究员计划，该计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外的卓越研究中心进行三到十二个月的研究。 该计划的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，以及使用国外独特或互补的设施，专业知识和实验条件。 该奖项将支持12个月的博士后研究访问博士迈克尔J米勒与博士彼得H。新西兰惠灵顿的维多利亚大学的J. Castle对南太平洋的细头鱼物种组合进行了研究。 他们的研究目的是了解鳗鱼的幼虫--细头鳗的分布生态和动物地理。 这将导致更好地了解成年海鳗的生殖生态，迁移和招募机制。 合作的重点将是分析在南太平洋进行的一系列航行中收集的细头鱼渔获量数据。 它们将集中分析与主要海流系统和该区域许多岛屿和环礁有关的物种组合结构和个体生活史。 进一步的研究可能会发现，长寿的细头鱼可以作为指标物种，以检查各种时间尺度上的循环模式，并可能提供有关全球气候变化或人类对海洋社区的直接影响所造成的生态破坏的宝贵信息。 ***

9402394 Miller This award is under the International Junior Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellows Program, which enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twelve months of research abroad at research centers of proven excellence. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twelve month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Michael J. Miller to work with Dr. Peter H. J. Castle at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand on species assemblages of leptocephali in the South Pacific Ocean. The purpose of their research, is to learn about the distributional ecology and zoogeography of leptocephali, the larval form of eels. This will lead to better understanding of the reproductive ecology, migration and recruitment mechanisms of adult marine eels. The focus of the collaboration will be the analysis of catch data of leptocephali collected during a series of cruises made in the south Pacific. They will concentrate on analysis of species assemblage structure and individual life histories in relation to major current systems and the many islands and atolls in the region. Further research may find that long-lived leptocephali can be used as indicator species to examine patterns of circulation on a variety of time scales and may provide valuable information about ecological disruptions caused by global climate change or direct human impacts on marine communities. ***