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MVCO survived a hard winter with no TLC from the staff since the weather closed operations down in December. One little trip by Jon Ware to swap some met mast instruments at the beginning of February, with Jim Edson and Marga McElroy each making a trip to the lab is all it saw of the crew this winter. A break in the weather on March 25th gave the first good opportunity for spring cleaning. Jay Sisson and Glenn McDonald did a fast mobilization and zipped out there with Bill Clemm in the MBL vessel Gemma. Unfortunately, the good weather didn't hold out for the next two weeks while Marga cleaned and tested the node inside and out. Another brief calm between storms provided a perfect day on April 14th and everyone set out again. This time Jay, Glenn, Esmail Ali and Eric Horgan did the diving for the node replacement task. At the same time, Marga brought Fred Thwaites out in the Mytilus to do some work on the tower while Rob Olson and Alexi Shalapyonok prepared an area next to the NE leg for their FlowCytobot. Brittan Rabinovitch helped the divers and ran the jet pump for the frame installation. The following week Jay's team was able to recover the NRL equipment from the winter sediment transport deployment. Biologists on Board Although air-sea interaction studies by marine meteorologist Jim Edson and carbon cycle scientist Wade McGillis motivated the original construction of both the observatory and ASIT extension, the facility is now rapidly expanding its user group into all areas of study. Biologists Rob Olson and Heidi Sosik are preparing for their second deployment at MVCO; this time they will install their FlowCytobot in 15m of water next to the tower. They are looking forward to watching the fluctuations of different populations of phytoplankton through the spring and summer seasons. Particular focus will be on Synechococcus, a 1-mm phytoplankter, which can be recognized easily because it contains an orange-fluorescing photosynthetic pigment (in addition to red-fluorescing chlorophyll). FlowCytobot counts and measures the size of the critters as it pumps water past a laser that causes them to fluoresce. The main objective of the study is to better understand how environmental factors control the cell division rates of these and other kinds of phytoplankton. Expanding Resources The growing MVCO user community has the team hustling to meet their needs while trying to make it easier for them to get on board. Toward that end, a second guest port simulator is being built and will soon be available to users needing to test their instruments before deployment. Contact Marga to schedule usage of either box. Our webmaster, Sheila Hurst, has been working on the web pages and there are several additions to the "Plugging In" area that should help users plan their installation. Check it out! Data manager Janet Fredericks has developed a slick passworded web page for instrument interface control. Users can check status or turn their sensor ON/OFF with a single click. Changing parameters is menu selectable to minimize costly errors. Suggestions are welcome for future enhancements so email your feedback and we'll see what we can do. The MVCO island truck has a new parking spot and sign up sheet in the MVCO lab (Bigelow 105) so check with Marga for availability, keys and directions before heading out there. Also note that our assigned space is toward the rear of the lot, so please do not park in front. During August, priority will be given to CBLAST users so plan accordingly. There are now guidelines for cable runs and logger installation at the shore lab. If you haven't seen them, please check the "Plugging In" web page. Again, suggestions are welcome. User Group Meeting The January and May user group meetings were very productive, and with busy summer and fall field programs planned for several projects, we will be scheduling these meetings at least quarterly. Please email any issues you would like to see on the agenda to mmcelroy@whoi.edu.
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