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

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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. ***