MRI:Development of an autonomous four dimensional planktonic microbial environmental sampling and survey system: MiVEGAS

国际海洋局要求提供资金，为全美广大微生物海洋学家设计、建造、集成、现场测试并提供一种稳定的共享仪器，称为多车辆生态基因组自动采样器(MiVEGAS)。MiveGas是一种新型仪器，由一个集成的机器人系统组成，可以自动和自适应地调查、采样和保存不同大小的浮游生物。部署时间从几天到三周不等。该机器人系统可以在无人值守的情况下从岸上发射。它可以测量和采样到300米深，作业范围超过1000公里，续航时间超过10天。MiveGas仪器有可能提供今天没有其他仪器可用的能力，并将提供新的方法来观察和描述各种微生物浮游生物，从而能够在高空间和时间分辨率下将海洋学参数与微生物多样性和活动相关联。这项联合开发工作是蒙特利湾水族馆研究所(MBARI)和微生物生态中心：研究和教育中心(C-MORE)的合作成果，C-MORE是一个由NSF赞助的多机构科学和技术中心。更广泛的影响：随着拟议的发展，为学生和技术人员的培训和发展提供了许多极好的机会。这项结合起来的技术有可能收集极其有用的数据。所获得的知识将是我们理解海洋生产力和气候变化的基础；该提案将促进工程师、机械师、海洋学家、分子生物学家、基因学家和微生物学家之间的跨学科互动；关注少数群体和教育宣传是适当的。这两个机构都有支持教育和研究的强大背景，并有现有机制吸引从中学到研究生的学生，包括妇女和代表不足的群体，包括天真的岛民。

The PI's request funding to design, build, integrate, field test, and make available a stable shared-use instrument called that Multiple Vehicle EcoGenomic Automated Sampler (MiVEGAS), for a broad community of microbial oceanographers across the United States. The MiVEGAS is a novel instrument comprised of an integrated robot system that can automatically and adaptively survey, sample and preserve different size classes of microbial plankton. Deployments can range from a few days to over three weeks. The robot system can be launched from shore unattended by ships. It can survey and sample to depths of 300 m, with an operational range exceeding 1000 kilometers and an endurance of greater than 10 days. The MiVEGAS instrument has the potential to provide capabilities that no other instrument available today, and will provide new ways to observe and characterize diverse microbial plankton, enabling correlation of oceanographic parameters with microbial diversity and activity at high spatial and temporal resolution. The joint development effort is a collaboration between the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the Center for Microbial Ecology: Research and Education (C-MORE), a multi-institutional NSF-sponsored Science and Technology Center. Broader Impacts: With the proposed development there are many excellent opportunities for training and development of students and technicians. The combined technology has the potential to collect extremely useful data. The knowledge gained will be fundamental to our understanding of productivity in the oceans and of climate change; the proposal will foster interdisciplinary interactions among engineers, machinists, oceanographers, molecular biologists, genomicists, and microbiologists; and attention to minority and educational outreach is appropriate. Both institutions have a strong background supporting education and research and have existing mechanisms to engage students ranging from middle school to graduate school including women and underrepresented groups, including naïve islanders.