Research Interests

My long-term goal is to understand the mechanisms responsible for the variability in phytoplankton biomass, primary production, and species composition. I started my oceanographic career by studying the role of phosphate availability in controlling phytoplankton biomass and production in the subtropical Central North Pacific.

Although I retain my interest in nutrient dynamics, my focus shifted to the interaction of phytoplankton and light in the ocean. I started this phase of my career with a study of the photoadaptive changes in the absorption cross section of photosystem I in marine phytoplankton. My present research interests include primary production (at the level of the single cell and as well as the entire phytoplankton assemblage); photosynthetic physiology as well as phytoplankton physiology in general; biological optics; and remote sensing. I have participated in a number of cruises in both the north Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Specific research projects have included the behavior of the photosynthetic quantum yield to different environmental conditions; the use of flow cytometry to study phytoplankton photoadaptive states and vertical mixing; the development of immunological methods to determine the presence of specific bacterial and phytoplanktonic species in field samples; the development of immunological methods to determine concentrations of photosynthetic components; and a variety of direct and inverse methods to determine the phytoplankton absorption coefficient from total absorption coefficients.

Recent Publications

Culver, M.E. and M.J. Perry. (1999 ) Fluorescence excitation estimates of photosynthetic absorption coefficients for phytoplankton and their response to irradiance. Limnology and Oceanography 44: 24-36.

Boss, E., M.J. Perry, and M.C. Talbot (1998) Observation of an intense deep-water intrusion in Puget Sound. 1998 Puget Sound Research Conference.

Culver, M.E. and M.J. Perry. (1997) Calculation of solar-induced fluorescence in surface and subsurface waters.Journal of Geophysical Research 102(C5): 10,563-10,572.

English, D.C., K. Banse, D.L. Martin and M.J. Perry (1996) Electronic overshoot and other bias in the CZCS global data set: Comparison with ground truth from the subarctic Pacific. International Journal of Remote Sensing 17: 3157-3168.

Lee, Z.P., K.L. Carder, J. Marra, R.G. Steward and M.J. Perry (1996) Estimating primary production at depth from remote sensing. Applied Optics 35: 463-474.

Orellana, M.V. and M.J. Perry (1995) Optimization of an immunofluorescent assay of the internal enzyme ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco) in single phytoplankton cells. Journal of Phycology 31: 785-794.

Roesler, C.S. and M.J. Perry (1995) Reflectance modeling: A method for determining phytoplankton absorption coefficients and fluorescence from reflectance spectra. Journal of Geophysical Research 100: 13,279-13,294.

Carder, K.L., Z.P. Lee, J. Marra, R.G. Steward and M.J. Perry (1995) Calculated quantum yield of photosynthesis of phytoplankton in the marine light-mixed layers (59N, 21W). Journal of Geophysical Research 100: 6655-6663.