Virginia Armbrust, an associate professor of oceanography, will receive $4.1 million during the next five years for her groundbreaking use of molecular tools to study marine phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are single-celled algae and the most abundant photosynthetic organisms in the ocean. They generate about half the oxygen humans breathe, form the base of the food web in the seas and remove the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
With the development of new molecular tools that allow scientists to study species at the DNA level, Armbrust and her colleagues not only study individual phytoplankton, but whole communities and how they interact with their environment and respond to change. Because of phytoplankton's importance in mediating global warming, scientists want to understand how changes in the environment translate into increases or decreases in phytoplankton abundance.
For example, a research article in the Oct. 1 edition of the journal Science, of which Armbrust was the lead author, describes the first ever genomic sequence of one species of diatom, a kind of phytoplankton, and offers surprising insights about the way it may be using nitrogen, fats and silica to thrive the world over. A news article in the magazine quotes a diatom systematist not connected with the paper as saying, "We've just jumped a generation ahead by having this kind of understanding of this genome."
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation launched its 10-year marine microbiology initiative in April, with the goal of attaining new knowledge regarding the composition, function and ecological role of microbial communities in the
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Contact: Sandra Hines
shines@u.washington.edu
206-543-2580
University of Washington
10-Nov-2004