USA - Environmental effects on neurogenesis in the juvenile lobster brain and hence the effect on behavioral patterns.

With the introduction of the new sea-ranching legislation in Norway, interest in rearing lobster juveniles for commercial purposes is high. There is a growing international interest in cultivating invertebrates of high market value in order to avoid deple ting the wild populations. It is critical that marine organisms reared for release purposes are fit for a life in the sea. In crustaceans, like the Homarid lobsters, it is known that the addition of new neurons to the olfactory regions of brain persists t hroughout life and in freshwater crayfish it has been shown that this neurogenesis is affected by the environment. Olfaction is a very important sense in crustaceans. Until now only descriptive work has been done on neurogenesis in lobsters, and the appl ied studies related to the fitness of lobster juveniles has been done only by visual inspection on growth and behaviour. Our plan is to join the expertise of Prof. Barbara S. Beltz and her laboratory at Wellesley College, Massachussets, USA with Dr. Gro I. van der Meeren, Institute of Marine Research, Norway, who is trained in behavioural ecology and behaviour in reared juvenile lobsters, in a protracted collaboration. To properly plan this project the collaborators need to meet. Optimally, such meeting s would occur at least twice at Wellesley College between the summers of 2005 and 2006, and in addition to have Dr. Beltz visit the IMR in order to understand the scope of work happening in Norway. This application is for funding travel and accommodation costs in connection with these meetings.