Golez: Old Dominion University Prof gets $4.6 M to study study fish in the Philippines. https://t.co/lJ2obrkZun https://t.co/NXpAO5JEnH
"Carpenter chose to work in the Philippines because it still has the world's highest concentration of marine species, he said. The research will be done over at least the next five years and involve multiple three- to four-month trips to the Philippines. He'll work with ODU students, Filipino students and recent graduates of many schools. Scientists from Rutgers, Texas A&M and Arizona State universities, as well as the Philippines, will take part.
"The 90,000 specimens gathered by the Albatross have been preserved in ethanol for 110 years and are kept at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
"He explained the diversity of the species in the Philippines like this: If you're diving in the Caribbean, within an hour you might see 20 or 30 species of of fish. In the Philippines, you'd see about 120, he said. When it comes to coral reefs, there are about 60 types in the Caribbean and more than 800 in the Philippines, he said."
ODU professor gets $4.6 million to study fish in the Philippines
NORFOLK
Kent Carpenter's research is like a trip in a genetic time machine.
And he has a $4.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation for the journey.
Carpenter, a marine biologist and professor at Old Dominion University, plans to compare the DNA of fish from the Philippines to genetic material of fish harvested there in the early 1900s by the research ship USS Albatross.
The idea is to find out how overfishing and habitat loss have impacted fish on a molecular level and to use that data to further study worldwide biodiversity.
"So little is known," Carpenter said. "We get a window into the process with a global application."
He'll look at 20 different species of fish, including anchovies, sardines and silversides, he said.
The grant he won is part of the science foundation's Partnership for International Research and Education. It's the second time Carpenter's gotten a partnership grant. The first was in 2006 for $2.5 million. Carpenter's current grant was among 14, totaling $66 million, according to the foundation.
"We need more research being done with foreign scientists," said Carpenter, who lived overseas for more than 20 years.
Carpenter chose to work in the Philippines because it still has the world's highest concentration of marine species, he said. The research will be done over at least the next five years and involve multiple three- to four-month trips to the Philippines. He'll work with ODU students, Filipino students and recent graduates of many schools. Scientists from Rutgers, Texas A&M and Arizona State universities, as well as the Philippines, will take part.
The 90,000 specimens gathered by the Albatross have been preserved in ethanol for 110 years and are kept at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
He explained the diversity of the species in the Philippines like this: If you're diving in the Caribbean, within an hour you might see 20 or 30 species of of fish. In the Philippines, you'd see about 120, he said. When it comes to coral reefs, there are about 60 types in the Caribbean and more than 800 in the Philippines, he said.
Carpenter, 64, has been doing research in the Philippines since 1975 when he went there as a Peace Corps volunteer. He met his wife there and knows the languages spoken in the country. He's been at ODU for 21 years and works out of labs in the oceanography and physics building. One room has an entire wall of fish preserved in jars. Each is labeled and some go back decades.
Last year, Carpenter testified at an international tribunal tasked with determining if China violated the rights of the Philippines over disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea. The Philippines won the case, he said.
"My heart is very deeply involved with trying to conserve marine biodiversity species," he said.
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