Director/Senior Scientist

Tel: 508 289-7193 | Fax: 508-457-1548
E-mail: hducklow@mbl.edu

Ph.D. Harvard University 1977
A.M. Harvard University 1974
A.B. Harvard University 1972

Full CV

Research Statement

I am a biological oceanographer and have been studying the dynamics of plankton foodwebs in estuaries, the coastal ocean and the open sea since 1980. My students and I have worked principally on microbial foodwebs and the role of heterotrophic bacteria in the marine carbon cycle. I have participated in oceanographic cruises in Chesapeake Bay, the western North Atlantic Ocean, the Bermuda and Hawaii Time Series stations, the Black Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Ross Sea, the Southern Ocean, the Equatorial Pacific and the Great Barrier Reef. Much of the work was done in the decade-long Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS), which I led in the late 1990s. Currently I lead the Palmer Antarctica Long Term Ecological Research Project on the west Antarctic Peninsula, where we’re investigating the responses of the marine ecosystem to rapid climate warming. Although our research is primarily experimental and observational, we utilize mathematical models and collaborate with modelers to gain deeper understanding and derive maximum benefit from the data we collect. As part of our research on microbial processes we participated in the MIRADA Project. We deployed a new time-series sediment trap to measure carbon flux during the Amundsen Sea Polynya International Research Expedition (ASPIRE) starting in December 2010. Our lab performs all the nutrient and chlorophyll analyses for the Coalition for Buzzards Bay Baywatchers Program.

Research Projects

Palmer Antarctica Long Term Ecological Research Project

Recent publications

2012 Ducklow, H., A. Clarke, R. Dickhut, S. C. Doney, H. Geisz, K. Huang, D. G. Martinson, M. P. Meredith, H. V. Moeller, M. Montes-Hugo, O. Schofield, S. E. Stammerjohn, D. Steinberg, W. Fraser. The Marine Ecosystem of the West Antarctic Peninsula. Chapter 5, pp. 121-159 In: A.Rogers, N. Johnston, A. Clarke, E. Murphy (eds) Antarctica: An Extreme Environment in a Changing World. Blackwell, London

2012 Fountain, A. G., J. L. Campbell, E. A. G. Schuur, E. S. Sharon, M. W. Williams, and H. W. Ducklow. The Disappearing Cryosphere: Impacts and Ecosystem Responses to Rapid Cryosphere Loss. BioScience 62: 405-415.

2011 Ducklow, H.W., K. M. S. Myers, M. Erickson, J. F. Ghiglione, A. E. Murray. Response of a summertime Antarctic marine bacterial community to glucose and ammonium enrichment. Aquatic Microbial Ecology 64, 205-220.

2011 Pollard, P. C. and H. W. Ducklow. Ultrahigh bacterial production in a eutrophic subtropical Australian river: Does viral lysis short-circuit the microbial loop? Limnol. Oceanogr., 56(3), 2011, 1115-1129.

2010 Schofield, O., H.W. Ducklow, D.G. Martinson, M.P. Meredith, M.A. Moline, W.R. Fraser. How Do Polar Marine Ecosystems Respond to Rapid Climate Change? Science 328: 1520-1523.

2010 Luo, Y. W., Friedrichs M. A. M., Doney S. C., Church M. J., Ducklow H. W. Oceanic heterotrophic bacterial nutrition by semilabile DOM as revealed by data assimilative modeling. Aquatic Microbial Ecology 60:273-287

Current and recent students

Catherine Luria, Brown-MBL PhD Program (with Jeremy Rich and Linda Amaral-Zettler)
Heidi Geisz, College of William and Mary Graduate School of Marine Science (with Rebecca Dickhut and William R Fraser).
Ya-wei Luo, Brown-MBL PhD Program (PhD, 2009 with Warren Prell).
Kristen Myers, (MSc, 2009 with Jeremy Rich and Linda Amaral-Zettler). Brown Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.