Achievement

Nicole Hayes performed mesocosm experiments examining the effects of light, phosphorus supply, and nitrogen to phosphorus ratio on phytoplankton community composition and nutrient limitation. She plans on assessing phytoplankton community in two ways. First, she used microscopy to enumerate the community on a bi-weekly basis to a genus level following typical lab techniques. Second, she used a bbe fluoroprobe to measure the biomass of phytoplankton taxonomic groups (green algae, bluegreen algae, cryptophytes, and crysopytes) three times weekly. The fluoroprobe allowed her to monitor short term changes in the phytoplankton community that would be too time consuming to do via microscopy. She hopes to publish two papers from this data; one examining the effects of light and nutrients on nutrient limitation and phytoplankton community composition and one on the nutrient limitation status of various phytoplankton taxonomic groups under similar conditions.