Marsh Youngbluth, PhD

Marsh Youngbluth is an Affiliate Professor at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute campus of Florida Atlantic University. His educational degrees include a B.S. (Portland State University), M.S. (University of Hawaii) and Ph.D. (Stanford University). He is a Biological Oceanographer whose research has addressed ecological and behavioral questions through studies of pelagic fauna including copepods, krill and gelatinous zooplankton using scuba, nets, sonar and submersibles. In situ investigations have been conducted in shallow (lagoons, estuaries and coral reefs) and deep (mesopelagic and bathypelagic) water habitats within Arctic, Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific seas. He has served as Director of the National Undersea Research Program and National Science Foundation, advisor for Deep Submergence Science Committee and Census of Marine Life Program, and editor of international marine science journals. For the past three years he has contributed to the NOAA NRDA Gulf of Mexico Offshore Sampling and Analysis Programby identifying gelatinous zooplankton collected in MOCNESS tows.

His role for the DEEPEND project will be to continue biodiversity investigations of soft-bodied fauna to document their temporal and spatial distribution patterns in relation to differences in habitat conditions within the uppermost 1500 m. This research will provide a component needed for understanding shifts in the structure and dynamics of pelagic food webs.