SGER: Participation in Italian Ross Sea Expedition

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This SGER proposal is an outgrowth of collaboration between Horn Point Laboratory,University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the University of Trieste andthe Laboratory for Marine Biology, Trieste, Italy. It is to support the participation ofDK Stoecker and a graduate student in an Italian expedition to the Ross Sea during theaustral summer 2002-2003. Techniques which have been recently developed to investigatethe autecology and population dynamics of temperate, coastal bloom-forming algae will beapplied to polar protists from the Ross Sea. This collaboration presents a tremendousopportunity to compare the role of microzooplankton grazing in bloom dynamics in temperateand polar systems, determine if polar microplankton have ectocellular protease activityand to obtain samples of the photosynthetic ciliate, Mesodinium rubrum and its crytophytealgal "prey" from the Ross Sea for molecular analysis. Futhermore, the cruise wouldcontribute to the education of a graduate student in polar science and provide materialfor his dissertation. It would also contribute to continued collaboration between UMCESand the Marine Biological Laboratory in Trieste, Italy.