Exciting news: I have been awarded an ABRS Grant to study “Folliciulnid ciliates of Coobowie Marine Park Sanctuary”, under the 2016-17 Capacity-Building Grant round of the Australian Government’s National Taxonomic Research Grant Program. Under the Governments Plan for a Cleaner Environment, the ABRS grants seek to improve our knowledge and understanding of Australia’s biodiversity.
This grant will be used to provide training and access to Electron Microscopes, other facilities and staff at the Centre for Microscopy at the University of Adelaide. Folliculinid protist are a unique group found from shallow saline swamps, coastal waters all the way down to black smokers thousands of metres below the surface. Presently the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the USA, has a vessel collecting deep samples at several thousand metres off Hawaii, and if they see any protists they will be sending samples to me.