Experience

Teaching:

Teaching of a course as part of the "Großpraktikum Meeresbiologie" Institut für Meereskunde in Kiel, Germany. Focus Microbial loop.

Teaching of the student senior senior research project class 460 and 499 at the School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.

Open house at the School of Oceanography in 2001, extremophile exibition room.

Technical experiences in oceanography:

July-Aug. 1991 and July-Aug. 1992
Development and testing of various underwater equipment for an autonomous in situ bacteria patchiness sampler.

July 1994
Collaboration and support in the design of a "TEP-sampler" with the company "Prototype engineering"  and Dr. F. Azam (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, La Jolla)

June-July 1994
Collaboration and support in the design of an "In situ, mesopelagic bacteria production incubator" with the company "Prototype engineering" and Dr. F. Azam (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, La Jolla)


 

Low temperature/ice technical experiences:

 
July-Aug. 1992
Development of a shock freezing unit with liquefied propane to temperatures of liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) for the SIP method (see publications). The equipment was later used at Dr. R. Stickler's Lab at the Great Lakes Studies, Milwaukee to conduct high speed, high magnification video analysis of rapidly freezing ice sheets (Freezing rate 1 mm s-1) filmed with a Schlierenoptical system that allowed to visualize microscopic density gradients in front of the freezing ice front.

February 1994
Construction of a low temperature exccicator system that allowed to conduct the sublimation of ice required for the SIP-method (see publications) at F. Azam's lab at the Scripps Institution of oceanography.

February 1994
Construction of an automated liquid propane delivery system for the SIP method with exchangeable freezing cartridge, at F. Azam's lab at the Scripps Institution of oceanography.

Sept. 1994
Construction of a small hand held brine channel simulator for the video observation of ice the associated meiofauna for Dr. C. Friedrich.

March 1995 to July 1995
Development, construction and calibration of an integrated current meter and water sampler (see publication)

March 1995 to July 1995
Development, construction and calibration of an inflatable flow tank that can be deployed at the ice water interface of sea ice.

July 1995 to Sept. 1995
Testing and application of the current meter and inflatable flow tank during the expedition Ark XI/1 1995 on board the RV. Polarstern in the Laptev Sea.

October-November 1995
Development, construction and calibration of an in situ brine channel video observation stage (OLS) for the observation of sympagic organisms under simulate natural conditions within the brine channel network of sea ice.

July 1996
Development and construction of a portable temperature gradient for large sampling volumes (approx. 30 liter) for usage on expeditions.

Nov. 1996
Participation in the development and design of a permeameter for sea ice at the Alfred Wegener Institut in Bremerhaven for J. Freitag. (see appendix)

June 1997
Technical consulting for a pancake ice sampler for Dr. Hayley Shen, Dep. of Civil and Environmental Eng., Clarkson University, Potsdam N.Y.

Aug.-Sept. 1997
Development, design and construction of a flow tank with modulated sea ice to conduct experiments that reveal physical and biological processes at the ice water interface.

Dec.-1997
Design and construction of a high magnification microscope stage "cryoscope" (see drawing) to observe the behavior of algae and TEP on the surfaces of the brine channel system of sea ice.

March.-1999 Oct. 2000
Design and developement of a temperature gradient block (TGB) for experimental research with a temperature range of operation from +10 to -42 °C.

Analytical techniques:

 

Standart biological oceanographical techniques:

Biomass determination
Usage of a variety of sampling gear on board (CTD, Rosette, Multinet ect.)
Quantative and qualitative investigations of phyto- and zooplanktonIce biological methods and equipment

Microscopical methods:

Electron microscopy TEM and SEM
Freeze edging and sputtering for Protozoology taxonomy.
Microtomy of protozoa
Silverline staining of protozoa
Epifluorescence microscopy, DAPI and AO Proflavin ect. staining
Epifluorescent microscopy of microbes in seaice thin sections
Phase contrast microscopy,
High speed video analysis of copepod swimming behavior
Schlierenoptical video recordings
Epifluorescent microscopy of seaice thin sections

Various methods for protozoa:

Measuremnt of exoenzymatic activity via fluorescent substrates (eg. Muf).
14C-primary production measurement
Thymidin and Leucin bacteria production measurement
Microautoradiography with bacteria and algae
Serial dilution experiments
FLB grazing experiments
Culture work of protozoa
Culture work with bacteria
Transfection of DNA with virus lambda
Toxicity tests with Lucibacter (LD 50)
Macrocosm experiments on oxic anoxic gradients
Anoxic incubation and plating techniques under a N2 tent
Clean bench work with bacteria strains, plating ect.
MPN-method, TBN-method
Isolation of bacteria strains and cultivation

Analysis:

Winkler oxygen method
C/N analyzer
Nutrient measurments (macronutrients) Chl a determination on Turner fluorometer (acetone extraction)
EPS quantification using the semiquantitative method with Alcian blue
Determination of polymer mass molecular fractions using centrifugation in a density gradient
Quantification of polysaccharides via the the sulphuric acid method of Dubois (1956)
Quantification of polysaccharides via the MBTH method
Quantification of polysaccharides via the Alcian blue colorimertic method

Glaciological methods:

Ice microtomy and crytal structure analysis under polarized lightIn situ microscopy of sea ice microorganisms using Epifluorescent microscopy and fluorescent staining techniques.