This project provides matching funds to allow the Baruch Field Station of the University of South Carolina to modernize its seawater facilities for rearing and maintaining marine organisms under controlled conditions. To realize its research potential, the Station's present antiquated seawater system must be replaced. Short- and long-term experiments requiring the maintenance of marine organisms under environmentally controlled seawater conditions are necessary to answer basic biological questions, including those relating to genetics, reproduction, bioenergetics, population dynamics, and life history phenomena. Improved seawater facilities are also necessary to address many of the questions which are part of the Long-Term Ecological Research Program underway at North Inlet Estuary. In addition, the new facilities will create many new research opportunities both for visiting scientists and for those from the Baruch Institute.
