Purchase of a Flow Cytometer for the Large-scale Assessment of Biogenic Particles in Estuarine and Coastal Systems

该项目将提供一个标准的台式流式细胞仪与氩激光照明，五参数分析，细胞分选能力的收购。 流式细胞术是一种重要的工具，跨学科研究的微生物种群和生源颗粒的动态，参与循环和流动的主要元素在陆地-海洋边缘的水生生态系统。 流式细胞术最初是作为细胞生物学和临床研究中分析单个细胞或生物颗粒的工具而开发的。 它最近在水生生物学中得到了广泛的应用，因为它可以提供水生系统中生物和非生物颗粒的丰度和特性的时间和空间分辨率，这是目前任何其他技术都无法比拟的。 目前需要这种分辨率来补充河口和海洋中元素循环的大尺度模型，其中生物颗粒的分布和特性是决定基本化学成分的脂肪和通量的关键因素。 因此，流式细胞术不再是一种仅限于临床研究的技术，而是可以有益地补充水生生态学和生物化学中常规使用的其他技术。这一建议代表了一种尝试，以扩大使用流式细胞术的密度，分布，细胞特征，分类组成和营养相互作用的生物颗粒在河口和大陆架生态系统的中大西洋地区的研究。 该仪器将置于霍恩波因特环境实验室，该实验室主要致力于研究浮游生物动态、物理海洋学以及河口和海洋生态系统中的物理-生物相互作用。 该仪器是非常通用的，将用于实验室和船舶为基础的研究，以及在实验室课程工作。 操作相对简单，用户友好，使其成为一个理想的工具，不仅为生态研究，而且为教育。

This project will provide for the acquisition of a standard bench top flow cytometer with argon laser illumination, five parameter analysis, and cell sorting capability. Flow cytometry is an important tool for interdisciplinary research on the dynamics of microbial populations and biogenic particles that participate in the cycling and flux of major elements in aquatic ecosystems of the land-sea margin. Flow cytometry was originally developed as a tool to analyze individual cells or biological particles in cellular biology and clinical research. It has more recently found wide applications in aquatic biology, because it can provide a level of temporal and spatial resolution of the abundance and characteristics of biogenic and non-biological particles in aquatic systems that no other current technology can match. This level of resolution is currently needed to complement largescale models of elements cycling in estuaries and oceans, where the distribution and characteristics of biological particles are the key factors that determine the fats and flux of essential chemical components. Thus, flow cytometry is no longer a technology restricted to clinical studies, but can profitably complement other techniques routinely used in aquatic ecology and biochemistry. This proposal represents an attempts to expand the use of flow cytometry in the study of the density, distribution, cellular characteristics, taxomic composition and trophic interactions of biogenic particles in estuaries and continental shelf ecosystems of the middle Atlantic region. The instrument will reside at the Horn Point Environmental Laboratory which has made a major commitment to the study of plankton dynamics, physical oceanography, and physical-biological interactions in estuarine and marine ecosystems. The instrument is extremely versatile and will be used in laboratory-and ship-based studies as well as in laboratory course work. Operation is relatively easy and user-friendly, makin g it an ideal tool not only for ecological research, but also for education.