There are a variety of imaging instruments that have been created in recent years for the study of marine particles (Craig et al., 2000; Davis et al., 1996; Jaffe and Franks, 1996; Katz et al., 1999; Sieracki et al., 1998; Weibe and Benfield, (in press); Widder et al., 1989). New systems are currently being developed and improved. These systems all create large numbers of digital images rapidly. The efficient interpretation of these images is the current and future bottleneck in our understanding of marine suspended particle dynamics. In this project we will consider images from 3 particular types of instruments:

• Color epifluorescence microscope images for pico- and nanoplankton

• Imaging-in-flow (FlowCAM) images for microplankton

• In-situ camera images for marine snow, zooplankton, fecal pellets

 These were chosen because they represent instruments covering the size range of particles from bacteria to large aggregates found in the oceans.

Sample Images