Assessing marine food chains using molecular probes

The project aims at developing molecular probes, and use these in assessments of marine food chains. Group-specific or species-specific probes will be developed, tested and validated, and used to detect the prey organisms for carnivorously feeding copepo ds. Pellets from freshly collected copepods will be enumerated and their contents assessed by molecular methods. Focus will be on the obligate carnivore Pareuchaeta norvegica, and the omnivirous copepods Metridia spp and Oithona spp. Particular emphasis w ill be on predation on different life stages of Calanus spp