This award supports travel for the PIs to Jinan University to plan a collaborative research project devoted to comparing the ecophysiology, trophodynamics and regulation of colony formation of a known species, Phaeocystis Antarctica, in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica with less understood Phaeocystis globosa, which has been discovered to be proliferating recently in large quantities and causing severe damage to the environment along the coast of Guangzhou China. Phaeocystis is a dominant phytoplankton genus worldwide with a peculiar life cycle that alternates between small solitary cells and large mucilaginous colonies. The planning visit is designed to lead to a collaborative, comparative study of these two species in order to better understand their biogeochemical cycles and impacts on the environment. The lead U.S. researcher is Professor Kam Tang of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) at the College of William and Mary. The counterpart researcher in China is Professor Qi, Yuwai of the Institute of Hydrobiology at Jinan University in Guangzhou. VIMS graduate students will have the unique opportunity to visit a leading oceanographic institution in China and actively contribute to planning research in an international context early in their careers. The planning activities also include meeting with scientists from the China Polar Institute to discuss opportunities for collaboration in conjunction with the International Polar Year.
