Dalhousie University

Purpose

This Project will isolate local strains of phytoplankton from coastal waters of Nova Scotia for use in developing novel sensors of oceanic response to environmental change. The Project targets species representative of the different ecological niches that are represented in seasonal succession from winter mixing, through a spring bloom, summer stratification, and fall remixing. These are likely to exhibit a range of different ecological traits and are likely to differ in taxonomic affiliation as well as size, morphology, and physiological plasticity. Establishing new strains that are more widely representative of those that occur in local waters is an important step to developing both omic and bio-optical signatures for monitoring changes in natural populations in response to environmental change.