Graduate Student
L. Alex Kahl
Rutgers University
Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences
71 Dudley Rd.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
tel: +1 732 932 6555
alex-at-marine.rutgers.edu
As a graduate student at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University, I am engaged in research related to the export of carbon from the sea surface. Specifically I am exploring the stickiness of marine algal cells (phytoplankton). The stickiness, or adhesion effeciency, of phytoplankton is a biologically mediated yet little understood control of plankton biomass export (principally thought of as carbon) from the sea surface. As phytoplankton convert about half of the earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide into oxygen, the export of carbon from the sea surface to the deep sea sediments is a significant sink of carbon from the earth's atmosphere. The ultimate goal of my PhD. dissertation is to make a contribution towards a more accurate budget of the earth's carbon cycle.