This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Support from the NSF MRI-R2 program allowed Baruch College, City University of New York, to purchase a Discrete Autoanalyzer, an automated instrument that is capable of providing robust measurements of trace quantities, accommodating water samples of variable salinity, conducting multiple types of solute assays simultaneously, and can be operated by many users with different expertise levels, including students. The acquisition of a Seal AQ2+ Discrete Autoanalyzer will enable the measurement of solutes in marine, brackish, and freshwater samples. Because it is automated, the machine will allow faculty and students to collect more data, multi-task in the laboratory, and will save money because it requires much lower volumes of samples and reagents relative to manual spectrophotometry. The instrument will enable research on diverse ecological topics, such as oyster restoration and nitrogen cycling, assessing spatial variability in nutrient concentration and biofilm growth limitation to inform stream restoration of an urban river (Bronx River, NY, USA), and understanding the driving forces that control blooms of an invasive diatom, Didymospehnia geminata, in the Northeastern US. The instrument will also be used to train undergraduate students in research, using current and sophisticated technologies. Results from the studies will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented by students and faculty at regional and national meetings.
