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Week 6
12 August 2006

 

Searching for the Elusive Element Using Biological Oceanography

Part II


Part IV
Mi-ok Park

 

  1. What is the objective of the project?
  • There are two goals. One is to find out what kinds of phytoplankton pigments are present in the samples. The other is to study colored dissolved organic matter.

 

Question: Phytoplankton have various pigments. Do pigs have pigments?

 

  1. What kinds of phytoplankton pigments are there?

  • There are three general categories. Within each category, there are a variety of different pigments.

    1. Chlorophyll

    2. Carotenoids

    3. Phycobilia

Question: Are carotenoids in any way related to carrots?

 

  1. What group or groups are you looking at? The carotenoids and the chlorophyll.

  • Some phytoplankton have as few as one carotenoid, making
    identification simpler. I am examining how the physical and chemical properties of this area affect the distribution of the phytoplankton. During the winter, the ocean water is more deeply mixed. I am gathering data to analyze whether there
    is more variability in distribution at this time compared to summer.

 

Question: Are carotenoids in any way related to carrots?

 

  1. How are you looking at colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM)?

  • I use a 0.2 micron filter to isolate the particles. These are large molecules about which very little is known. We use fluorescence to identify the organic substances. The molecules fluoresce at different wavelengths, from ultra violet to visible light, enabling us to classify the type of chemicals present in CDOM.

 

http://www.pknu.ac.kr/pknu_en/main/index.aspxMi-ok Park is a professor in the Department of Oceanography at Pukyong National University in Pusan, Korea.

 

 

Week 6
12 August 2006
Searching for the Elusive Element
Using Biological Oceanography
Part I

Part I Section I Part I

 The Mitchell Group
Part II Part I Section II Part II The Hewes Group
Part III Part II Part II Karen Selph
Part I – Section II Part I Section II Part IV Mi-ok Park



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NSF Office of Polar Programs, Antarctic Sciences Section
This special report was made possible by the NSF Office of Polar Programs, Antarctic Sciences Section, Award Nos. ANT04-44134 University of California-San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography (B. Gregory Mitchell, Farooq Azam, Katherine Barbeau, Sarah T. Gille, Osmund Holm-Hansen); ANT04-43403 University of Hawaii (Christopher I. Measures, Karen E. Selph); ANT04-44040 University of Massachusetts Boston (Meng Zhou); ANT04-43869 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Matthew A. Charette),  for the study entitled "Collaborative Research: Plankton Community Structure and Iron Distribution in the Southern Drake Passage".