URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Fall_2018_Melissa-McCarthy

Plumbing the deck-board incubators to get them ready for measurements of phytoplankton growth and mortality.

methods, the work is very labor intensive and time consuming.” Developing a new method to measure grazing at multiple locations and depths would help scientists assess the impact of predation across environmental gradients more quickly, easily and less expensively. “For example, a traditional grazing experiment requires about 30 bottles and involves creating replicates by diluting the samples with filtered seawater and monitoring how much grazing takes place in the different dilutions,” she says. “The most you can do is once per day at one spot in the ocean.” A pilot project with Menden-Deuer and physical sciences Professor Sarah Knowlton of Rhode Island College used newly acquired transcriptomics data to examine gene expression of predators under varying grazing conditions providing new insights into their metabolism.

Rynearson brings her considerable expertise to the EXPORTS science campaign as a co-principal investigator with URI oceanography Professor Susanne Menden-Deuer (article page 14). Their project — Quantifying plankton predation rates, their effects on primary production, phytoplankton community composition, size spectra and potential for export — launched sampling in August 2018 aboard the R/V Revelle about 1,000 miles offshore of Seattle with postdoctoral fellows (article page 24) Ewelina Rubin (Rynearson lab) and Françoise Morison and Heather McNair (Menden-Deuer lab). URI Professors Bethany Jenkins (article page 18) and Melissa Omand (article page 22) are also part of the EXPORTS research expedition. “One of the things we’re trying to do is develop novel genetic sensors to look at grazing and food web dynamics,” explains Rynearson. “With traditional