The Project: Research Questions

The scientists wonder if water temperature is the only thing that influences the alkenone molecules inside each plant cell. The scientists are wondering if the alkenones might be different if the plant is “stressed” when it is growing. A plant can be “stressed” if it doesn’t have the right amount of light or nutrients when it grows. (Think about your houseplants and what happens when they get too little or too much sunlight and fertilizer!!)

So, scientists have grown the plant cells in the laboratory under different conditions of darkness and lack of plant food. They have analyzed the alkenones in the laboratory plants. Now the scientists are going to test what they have learned in the laboratory by going to sea and analyzing the alkenones in the plants they find in the ocean water.

The scientists will look at the water in the Gulf of California (see map below) and at a research site further north in the Pacific Ocean (that will take place on a later cruise).

The scientists are also looking at these plants in the ocean during different seasons of the year. They will go to the same area in the Gulf of California during one winter and two different summers. They will compare what they found at each time. January is a good time for some types of plants to grow in this part of the ocean. It is a time of upwelling, where nutrients from the deep ocean are brought to the surface water as the currents and wind patterns change direction. Summer, on the other hand, is a time when there aren’t as many nutrients in surface water because upwelling is not actively occurring. Curiously, the specific plant studied in this project likes to grow best in the Gulf of California in the summer.

Here are some of the scientific research questions:

• Why does the plant Emiliania huxleyi grow best in the Gulf of California in summertime, a period when the availability of fertilizer (‘nutrients’) is not the best?

• Do we see the same things (alkenone structure) we saw in laboratory experiments when we look at the plants in the ocean?

• How does the growth and alkenone structure of these cells in the Gulf of California compare with those found at the site further north in the Pacific Ocean?

• What differences do we see between the two different summer field expeditions, and among the summer and winter expeditions?

This special report was made possible by NSF Marine Geology and Geophysics Award Nos. OCE-0326573 to Fredrick Prahl (Oregon State University)and OCE-0324299 to Brian N. Popp (University of Hawaii) for study of "Alkenone Production and Productivity in Contrasting Surface Water Environments in the North Pacific Ocean."