This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The Swedish icebreaker Oden provides an unprecedented opportunity to sample the sea ice microbial community in a region of the Antarctic ice pack that has received very little attention to date. The research will examine the microbial community throughout the large expanse of sea ice that is located between the Bellingshausen Sea and the Ross Sea, Antarctica. The project will 1) characterize the spatial variability in the sea ice microbial community composition and, where possible, relate it to the community composition observed in the water column, 2) measure the biomass, photophysiology and metabolic rates of the ice algal community and relate these to physicochemical conditions within the pack ice, 3) use underway sampling to make continuous measurements of climatically important gases such as carbon dioxide and dimethyl sulfide to identify and discretely sample "hot spots" within the pack ice where microbial processes have altered the ambient concentrations of these gases, and 4) use molecular tools to determine phytoplankton responsible for carbon dioxide uptake and dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) production and to what extent physical and chemical factors control these processes by examining expression of target genes in the carbon dioxide uptake and DMSP production pathways. Scientists will work with Stanford's Summer Program for Professional Development for Science Teachers (http://pangea.stanford.edu/outreach/about/index.html) and participate in Stanford's School of Earth Sciences high school internship program. The project also will be used as a teaching tool to inform the public, in part by publishing a teaching module about primary producers and the Antarctic ecosystem.
