Tuesday 12 May 2015

Biosciences Seminar Speaker 14 May 2015

Biosciences Seminar Series - Spring 2015
14 May 2015 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace 129)



Zooplankton and the Scoop on Poop

Dr. Stephanie Wilson

Image from: www.whoi.edu

This week we will be hosting Dr. Stephanie Wilson, a marine biology research lecturer from the School of Ocean Sciences at the University of Bangor. Stephanie's research focusses on zooplankton ecology and their role in carbon cycling and the relation with climate. Specific interests are zooplankton impacts on nutrient redistribution and contribution to the biological pump, and the impacts of climate change on zooplankton distribution and abundance, and the ensuing carbon flux, through the deep sea.  

Stephanie joined the School of Ocean Sciences in Bangor in 2011 as a research lecturer. Previously she completed her PhD on the feeding ecology of mesopelagic zooplankton in the North Pacific Ocean at the College of William and Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science. This was followed by postdoctoral positions at first the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, then at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole and at Arizona State University


Abstract
Zooplankton are critical to the functioning of global food webs. Zooplankton-mediated processes can impact how organic carbon is transferred from the surface to the deep ocean, where it is sequestered for thousand-year to millennial time scales. Differences in zooplankton community structure and diet play a key role in affecting the efficiency by which marine snow is exported to depth, but how the structure of deep-sea food webs change with depth and location is poorly known. 

This seminar will discuss zooplankton, their feeding ecology, and faecal pellet production to investigate how food webs in the pelagic environment are linked and how these links may be affected by a warming ocean.





Hope to see many of you - everyone most welcome to attend!

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