Parent project: Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning - EU Network of Excellence, more Acronym: MARPLAN Period: October 2005 till December 2008 Status: Completed
Objectives
1. Kick-off meeting
2. Short term sabbatical visits to partner institutes within MARPLAN to gain experience in techniques or to use equipment unavailable at the home institutes, and to teach expertise unavailable at the host institute (task 12 & 13 of core objectives)
3. Calibration of tools to permit comparison of results among groups (task 6 of core objectives)
4. Exchange of samples and strains (task 1 of core objectives)
5. Donation of strains to culture collections (task 1 of core objectives)
6. Integration and outreach through peer reviewed papers about results obtained during MARPLAN exchanges among institutes (task 9 of core objectives)
7. Integration and outreach through presentations of results obtained during MARPLAN exchanges among institutes at conferences (task 9 of core objectives)
8. Writing in collaboration of research proposals (task 9 of core activities)
9. Organization of workshops and symposia on plankton diversity at conferences
10. Writing of activity report
11. See daughter project
Description of work
Task 1. Organize kick-off meeting
Agreements about the tasks need to be made in detail.
Task 2. Scientific training and exchange; link supply and demand through short-term sabbaticals MARBEF will foster interdisciplinary research. The scientific training and exchange programme within the responsive mode proposal MARPLAN allows researchers and students to travel to and spend time at other partner institutes to carry out collaborative research and exchange skills.
Task 3. Calibrate instruments and methods for studying microplankton biodiversity
The performance of flow cytometers and the various FISH protocols need to be calibrated using shared plankton samples and standard strains. Methods such as quantitative PCR, fingerprinting and gene cloning need to be compared between labs because for many of these approaches very little comparison or even exploration of parameter space has been done.
Task 4. Exchange of material
The MARPLAN network covers a suite of marine habitats across Europe for isolation of strains. MARPLAN includes the following tasks: i) isolate local strains for MARPLAN partners upon request, ii) provide MARPLAN partners with the information when and where taxa can be collected and then host these partners to allow them to isolate strains and, iii) exchange material.
Task 5. Donate plankton strains to culture collections
Culture collections often have difficulties in obtaining strains from other environments that the ones in their region whereas research strains need to be maintained for reference and future research.
Task 6. Integrate biodiversity research on plankton organisms
Ongoing taxonomic, ecological, molecular phylogenetic and biological research on various plankton organismal groups will be incorporated in MARPLAN and will result in a series of peer-reviewed papers. See also Task 11.
Task 7. Outreach, present results on plankton diversity at international meetings
Results of collaborations in MARBEF will be presented in oral and poster form at congresses, symposia and workshops.
Task 8. Write in collaboration of research proposals on plankton diversity
A series of research proposals will be composed among partners in MARPLAN to be submitted in the next round of the EC. The network will serve as a base.
Task 9. Organize workshops and symposia on plankton diversity at conferences
Symposia are planned on international meetings where results obtained by MARPLAN project members are given exposure. Visibility given to MarBEF will be directly proportional to the amount of MarBEF funding.
Task 10.Write activity report
This task will demand a considerable time investment from the organizers
Task 11.Daughter project
A daughter project on the biogeography of Rhodospirellula baltica by J Harder has been incorporated within MARPLAN
All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy
