Funding is provided for exploratory research into the feasibility of combining Video Plankton Recorder (VPR) technology with Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and Raman spectroscopy to remotely identify plankton to the species level. The PI's will conduct laboratory experiments using known species of plankton collected from coastal waters and cultures. The resulting data will be analyzed by combining morphological features from the VPR images with features obtained from the LIBS and Raman spectral profiles. Using these combined features, they anticipate being able to improve the detection of taxonomic resolution down to species level.
