Mmmm southern cooking\u2026 Fried chicken and biscuits, shrimp and grits, crawfish etouffee\u2026 I could go on for quite a while. But actually I\u2019m talking about the natural diet of small crustaceans called copepods. And I\u2019m talking farther south\u2026much farther.<\/p>\n
I was recently awarded funding from the National Science Foundation through the Office of Polar Programs to study the biology of Antarctic copepods. I will join a field expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula, an environment and ecosystem that is rapidly changing. Antarctic copepods have developed particular feeding and behavioral strategies to survive in their very seasonal environment, but it is not known how each of these species will respond to environmental change. The overall goal of this project is to examine and compare these adaptations across species and to understand how each species responds to short-term changes in food availability.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m very lucky to have the opportunity to visit this remote region of the world (!!!). But I consider myself even luckier to bring this exciting project into my lab and to have the opportunity to peek inside these Antarctic critters. We\u2019ll be using transcriptomics, enzyme assays, microscopy and lipid profiling to examine how their biology responds to natural environmental gradients and experimental manipulations (yep, I\u2019ll be putting the copepods on some crash diets). Like a kid building sand castles, I\u2019ve been designing and dreaming of this project for the past three years.<\/p>\n
These days I\u2019m largely focused on the logistics of getting things ready. So far, I\u2019ve made 9 different visits to various doctors\u2019 offices and clinics to get medical clearance. I\u2019ve pored over the experimental details with equipment suppliers and the excellent logistics support team within the US Antarctic Program. Most recently, I\u2019ve been obsessing about cobbling together a compact, sturdy frame to hold all my buckets of copepods using parts readily available from Home Depot. I\u2019ve sent in my measurements for everything from ultra-cold-resistant gloves to boots and a neck gaiter. I told my family that my Christmas list consists entirely of merino wool base layer clothing. Excitement is building!<\/p>\n
I wanted to share a quick announcement of this project, but lots more should be coming in 2019. Among other things, I plan to collaborate with our Graphics Department to develop some interactive animations related to the project. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mmmm southern cooking\u2026 Fried chicken and biscuits, shrimp and grits, crawfish etouffee\u2026 I could go on for quite a while. But actually I\u2019m talking about the natural diet of small crustaceans called copepods. And I\u2019m talking farther south\u2026much farther. I was recently awarded funding from the National Science Foundation through the Office of Polar Programs…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":754,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions\/754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/tarrantlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}