Dec
4
AGU attendees! Just a quick note to encourage you to check out the poster session on the morning of Friday the 18th. Among others there will also be the poster which is the culmination of my project over the summer and my first piece of ‘proper’ published work. Details are below (cribbed shamelessly from the AGU website):
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| Stable carbon isotopes of zooplankton lipid components as a tool to differentiate between pelagic and ice algae as a food source for zooplankton in the Arctic Ocean. J. A. Bendle1; H. Moossen1; R. Jamieson1; A. Wold2; S. Falk-Peterson2 1. G.E.S., University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom. 2. Norwegian Polar Institute , Tromsø, Norway. |
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| Every summer in the Arctic, the ice cover melts and releases sea-ice algae into the surrounding waters. How important are these algae, consisting mostly of diatoms, as a major food source for zooplankton and higher trophic levels? The answer to this question is timely, given predictions for the loss of summer sea ice cover this century. We are investigating the use of compound specific carbon isotopes as a tool to differentiate between lipids found in zooplankton which feed on diatoms living in the open ocean and zooplankton which feed on diatoms derived from the ice. To this effect we analyse the carbon isotopic signature of the major fatty acids and alcohols and that of the major sterols collected during the Arctic ICE CHASER expedition aboard the RRV James Clark Ross in 2008. Twenty three zooplankton samples comprised of 11 different species were collected in four different depth intervals at three different sites around Svalbard. The sites had variable ice cover, from open water to solid ice. We analysed the lipid composition of the zooplankton samples with special emphasis on the fatty acids and fatty alcohols bound as esters. Esters are produced by zooplankton to function as an energy reservoir. Initial results such as the occurrence of Brassicasterol, 24 methylencholest 5 en-3β-ol and Desmosterol, high amounts of the C20:5ω3 fatty acid and high C16:1ω7/C16:0-fatty acid ratios suggest that diatoms are an important part of the zooplankton diet.
http://www.ges.gla.ac.uk:443/postgraduates/hmoossen |
Be sure to tell the bewildered looking German PhD student standing next to it that Bob says hi. That should baffle Heiko entertainingly.
Tags: Biomarkers, Geology, Summer Project, Zooplankton