Dr. Pieper, and his collaborator Dr. Holliday, will undertake a two-year program to develop the new instrumentation that will allow the ocean science community to test hypotheses about how changes in physical oceanographic parameters at a variety of spatial and temporal scales will result in complementary changes in the composition and abundance of zooplankton and micronekton communities. This research will be part of the Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics program of the US Global Change Program. These investigators will develop arrays for six moorings which will include current meters, thermistors, and several kinds of sensors designed to acoustically estimate zooplankton and micronekton biomass and size at one-half hour intervals. These systems will include automated data acquisition and real-time telemetry to facilitate analysis and provide opportunities for opportunistic sampling of transient events.
