Development of nested, autonomous phytoplankton monitoring technology. Final report for period April 2002 - December 2004.

Abstract

This report describes activities of Mote Marine Laboratory's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site Program. The objective of the project is to expand the present use of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to include the study of in situ distributions of phytoplankton communities. Specifically, this work developed and integrated optically-based phytoplankton discrimination (OPD) instruments into two classes of (AUVs) to provide an end-to-end in situ phytoplankton detection and mapping capability.