Contact: Aja Sae-Kung
(202) 482-6090
aja.sae-kung@noaa.gov
NOAA04-R999-39
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 6, 2004
NOAA AWARDS MORE THAN $50,000 TO NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY TO STUDY THE LIFE CYCLE OF TOXIC DINOFLAGELLATES
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded the North Carolina State University Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology a $53,905 grant to examine the reproductive cycles of a toxic dinoflagellate. Researchers hope to use the research to reduce economically disastrous fish kills. NOAA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The funding will support research examining the life cycle of dinoflagellate Karlodinium micrum, a single-cell floating animal. The grant is part of the Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms program, managed by NOAA Ocean Service. Specifically, North Carolina researchers will examine patterns of asexual and sexual reproduction in the organism that has been associated with economically damaging fish kills in estuaries along the entire US Atlantic coast. The research is critically necessary for understanding the reproductive biology of this microorganism and represents an important first step in understanding the formation and reoccurrence of harmful Karlodinium micrum blooms.
“Fish kills and harmful algal blooms cause serious economic and public health problems everywhere. The better we understand how blooms form, the better we can predict, prevent and minimize the effects,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “NOAA and the Bush Administration are working to improve the understanding of our environment and to strengthen local initiatives like those run by North Carolina State University.”
ECOHAB seeks to produce state-of-the-art detection methodologies for harmful algal blooms and their toxins, understand the causes and dynamics of these events, develop forecasts of their growth, transport, and toxicity, and predict and ameliorate impacts on higher trophic levels and humans.
Each year, NOAA Ocean Service’s Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research, which manages ECOHAB, awards approximately $30 million in grants to members of the academic, state and scientific communities to assist NOAA in fulfilling its mission to study our coastal oceans in order to predict environmental change, manage ocean resources, protect life and property, and provide decision makers with reliable and timely scientific information. NOAA-sponsored competitive research programs such as ECOHAB demonstrate NOAA's commitment to these basic responsibilities of science and service to the nation for the past 34 years.
NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of our nation’s coastal and marine resources.
On the Web:
NOAA Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB)
