Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, University of Delaware College of Marine Studies, & NOAA Sea Grant A Deep-Sea Odyssey
What is your role in Extreme 2001?

My research is directed toward studies of the diversity of protists (microbial eukaryotes) in extreme and temperate marine environments. I use molecular techniques to examine the genetic diversity of protistan organisms in these locations to identify the dominant/active members of the community and to determine

whether certain species are endemic to particular environments. The environments that I have been working in include the Ross Sea, Antarctica, the Sargasso Sea and the San Pedro Channel.

My participation in this cruise will allow me to expand my genetic analyses to another extreme environment — the hydrothermal vents. The project that I will be doing will include the concentration of very large volumes of water to microscopically assess the morphological diversity of the sample, determine whether the organisms are in a dormant or an active state, and perform in situ hybridization analyses with recovered gene sequences. In addition, the recovered gene sequences can be used to identify the genetic relationships between the organisms from these samples and those from other vent and temperate samples. In this manner, I hope to begin correlating genetic identification with morphological descriptions of the protozoa living at these sites.

Copyright University of Delaware, Oct. 2001.