Fachhochschule Hagenberg

As part of their internships at SkIO, Hagenberg students work on various aspects of upgrades, expansion, and documentation of image processing routines, data analysis capabilities, and media technology and design.

This collaboration represents an excellent example of how complementary technologies, in this case molecular biology, microbial ecology, and computerized image analysis, can interact to facilitate scientific progress in directions and at rates that are not achievable through individual application alone.

Students work primarily in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Verity, who has dedicated the past 15 years to software development for studies in plankton and microbial ecology. During that time experimentation with adapting commercial packages, designed for biomedical use, to marine applications always found the medical software lacking, expensive, and full of bugs. Custom solutions had to be developed and in August 2002 SkIO released as shareware its first completely custom product: Skipper. Skipper is not only free but also platform- and OS-independent.

In 2001, the Institute entered into a formal scientific and educational agreement of cooperation with Fundação Universidad do Rio Grande (FURG), in Rio Grande, near the Uruguay border in Southern Brazil. The purpose of this agreement is to increase the development of research to further the progress of marine science via exchange of researchers, teachers and postdoctoral students.

Research continues on this lagoon system, the largest in South America and one of the largest globally, studying groundwater-surface water interactions focused on the transport and mixing of freshwater and seawater under the barrier spit which separates the Lagoon from the South Atlantic. This work is also funded jointly by NSF and CNPq. Collaborators include Herb Windom (SkIO), Rick Jahnke (SkIO), Felipe Niencheski (FURG), and W. Moore (U. South Carolina).

Additionally, a joint project is underway between SkIO and the Fundação Universidad do Rio Grande to model the circulation and mixing of the Duplin River as part of the Georgia Coastal Ecosystem-LTER program. The work is being undertaken by J. Blanton (SkIO) and E. Furnandes (FURG).

The model uses state-of-the-art algorithms that compute velocities in the intertidal area — the area bounding the river that is covered twice daily by the tide. The model will be eventually updated with bottom depths in the intertidal area as determined from a sequence of aerial images. This part of the program will include F. Andrade from the U. of Lisbon (see item under PORTUGAL). Furnandes and Blanton hope to expand this collaboration to include a comparison of the circulation of the Duplin River in Georgia with the circulation of Lagoa dos Patos in Brazil.

As a collaborator in a five-year, U.S. NSF MedFlux project, Dr. Stuart Wakeham and colleagues from several US universities have worked with marine biogeochemists at the Laboratoire de Microbiologie, Géochimie et Ecologies Marines in Marseilles, France and the Marine Environment Laboratory of the International Atomic Energy Laboratory in Monaco. Along with LMGEM scientists Drs. Madeleine Goutx and Christian Tamburini, and IAEA scientists Drs. Juan Carlos Miquel and Scott Fowler, a series of MedFlux cruises, several on the French research vessel Tethys II, studied particle dynamics and biogeochemistry in the NW Mediterranean Sea. Several principal investigators meetings have been held at LMGEM in Marseilles .

Dr. Madeleine Goutx (left) with MedFlux colleague Cindy Lee, during a visit to SkIO

In both 2006 and 2007, Dr. Wakeham spent several months in the LMGEM laboratory with a fellowship as a Research Investigator sponsored by the French Centre National de la Researches Scientifique (CNRS). A collaboration has also developed with Dr. Jean-François Rontani, whose research investigates photochemical and biological degradation of particulate organic substances.

French research vessel Tethys II

Since 1997 the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography has supported student research interns from the University of Applied Sciences in Biotechnology in Mannheim, Germany. Biotechnology and chemistry students working toward the equivalent of bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering are required to spend at least one six month term participating in practical training internships. Research labs at SkIO provide the opportunity for these students to explore applications of biotechnology and chemistry to basic and applied research in the marine sciences. Students participate in internship projects within individual investigators labs and are supported by research stipends. Typically, one to five students are in residence at Skidaway per semester. Over twenty students from Mannheim, thus far, have completed internships at SkIO. Students from Mannheim contribute substantially to ongoing research and enhance the Skidaway community with their skills, creativity, and cultural perspectives.

Universities of Applied Sciences or as they are called in German, Fachhochschules, do not have an equivalent institution in the US. The primary mission of these universities is the training of highly-qualified, responsible, independently-minded and critical graduates who are able to present, discuss and implement solutions. After graduation, students typically follow careers in the private sector although students are not restricted from pursuing academic careers. The Fachhochschule in Mannheim specializes in the training of biotechnology students.

For more information about this program please contact Dr. Marc Frischer.

Dr. Stuart Wakeham has teamed up with a group of US and European oceanographers to study particle dynamics in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea. During 2003, four cruises took place off Monaco to the French JGOFS "DYFAMED" site. The research group was sponsored in Monaco by Drs. Scott Fowler, Juan-Carlos Miquel, and Beat Gasser of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Marine Environment Laboratory (IAEA-MEL) at Monaco. US participants included Meaghan Askea from Skidaway, Drs. Cindy Lee, Robert Armstrong, and Kirk Cochran, and graduate students Zhanfei Liu and Gillian Stewart, all of the State University of New York-Stony Brook, and Michael Peterson of the University of Washington. Other European participants included Dr. Madeleine Goutx of CNRS, Marseilles, France, and Dr. Pere Masque of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. The goals of the research program are to investigate the relationship between particulate organic matter and inorganic minerals in the upper 1000 m of the ocean. Sediment traps were used to collect particulate matter in the water column. The DYFAMED site was chosen because there is a 10-year time-series of data there, and it is a deep water site (2000m) that is easily accessible from Monaco, being only 50 km offshore.

Aerial Shot of Monaco

SkIO and Norwegian scientists are jointly interested in the role of Phaeocystis in marine pelagic ecosystems and since 1985, they have joined forces to conduct their research. Dr. Paul Wassmann of the Norwegian College of Fishery Science at the University of Tromso in northern Norway and Dr. Peter Verity (SkIO) both study Phaeocystis, which may play a pivotal role in the structure and function of ecosystems where and when it occurs. Dr. Wassmann maintains an active research group in Tromso, and has a 20 year archive of data on Phaeocystis versus diatom blooms, along with complementary data, including phytoplankton, zooplankton, and nutrients.

Since Phaeocystis is a dominant species in Norwegian waters for much of the growing season, the fjords and coastal waters of northern Norway offer several unique advantages to conducting on-site research: they are well known to us, have a long database, provide Phaeocystis blooms every spring, and are an excellent location for related cooperative studies (e.g. DMS/gas exchange). For this reason, Dr. Peter Verity has participated in research programs and workshops in Norway in 1986, 1988, 1993, and 1996-9. The International Programs division of the National Science Foundation supported SkIO's collaborative studies with Norwegian scientists in 1999 during a three week cruise. Dr. Marc Frischer, Dr. Peter Verity, two Ph.D. students, H. Howard-Jones (GIT) and A. Allen (UGA), and a host of Norwegian scientists studied planktonic and microbial communities. The cruise aboard a Norwegian ice-reinforced research vessel was led by Dr. Wassmann, and crossed an ecological gradient from productive fjords across the open ocean and into pack ice. It was a great opportunity to look for patterns in nature, and for our students to begin to learn about science and people in a unique environment.

Typically 10-12 of our students and technical staff travel to Norway for these collaborative studies, and other colleagues at the University of Bergen and from additional countries join us for these 5-week experiments.

As part of these studies, Dr. Jens Nejstgaard received a very prestigious fellowship from the Norwegian Research Council to spend one year at SkIO developing state-of-the-art molecular biology protocols to quantify how much food of what types are eaten by zooplankton feeding on Phaeocystis and competing phytoplankton.

In the near future (2005-6) these scientists hope to pursue the final empirical stage of this project. The general objective will be to accept or reject those hypotheses derived from the lab studies that are also supported or modified during the mesocosm experiments. By this phase these scientists will have available a complete toolkit of empirical and model results describing linkages and feedbacks among system components; chemical ecology bioassays and specific chemical indicators of biological interactions; molecular probes to recognize Phaeocystis solitary cells in situ and in gut contents; and perhaps chemical tracers with reporter molecules.

Faculty from the Universidade do Algarve and University of Lisbon have participated in research cruises in Georgia estuaries through the National Science Foundation's Land Margin Ecosystem Research. This exchange has resulted in several publications on the transport and fate of salinity and suspended sediments in coastal plain estuaries. Dr. Blanton (SkIO) and Prof. F. Andrade (U. of Lisbon) were the coordinators of this program.

Through a Fulbright Grant, Blanton spent seven months at the University of Lisbon's Laboratório Maritimo da Guia Marine Laboratory where he taught a course in coastal physical oceanography. He also worked jointly with Prof. Andrade conducting research on a coastal plain estuary in southern Portugal. This collaboration has resulted in three publications on transport and mixing of oceanic and riverine water in estuaries.

One of the key results of this exchange has been the development of a remote sensing method to measure the tidal prisms of tidal creeks and estuaries. The method has been used to create detailed depth data in the intertidal area for use in numerical simulations.

There has also been active collaboration between SkIO and the Universidade de Aveiro where Blanton has given short courses on coastal physical oceanography. Dr. H. Queiroga has included Blanton on an advisory committee for a multi-institutional program on larval recruitment. Queiroga spent a 3-month sabbatical at SkIO where he and Blanton wrote a review paper on larval recruitment. This paper has been accepted for publication.