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NARRAGANSETT, R.I., Feb. 10, 2016鈥擜lison Cleary spent six months at the top of the world recently studying what tiny crustaceans eat, kayaking in the light at midnight鈥攁nd carrying a rifle to protect her from polar bears.

Cleary, who graduated from the 溏心vlog免费B站鈥檚 Graduate School of Oceanography in May 2015 with a doctorate in oceanography, says the experience on the Norwegian island of Svalbard was thrilling.

鈥淪valbard is an incredibly beautiful place full of kind, interesting people,鈥� she says. 鈥淓veryone in my biology group loved their research, and morning coffee time was full of talking about everything from science to skiing.鈥�

At the University Centre in Svalbard, or UNIS, from July through December, she worked on analyzing data to better understand what Calanus glacialis copepods eat during the year.

Calanus glacialis are small crustaceans鈥攁 bit smaller than a raisin鈥攖hat are crucial to Arctic ecosystems. They are important food for fish and even small seabirds. But they鈥檙e tiny, so their eating habits can be difficult to study. Cleary and her colleagues solved that problem by using new sequencing DNA tools to figure out what was in the copepods鈥� stomachs.

First, researchers caught copepods in the wild and then preserved their stomach contents for analysis. Back in the lab, DNA from the copepods was extracted. Food the copepod ingested had different DNA from the copepod, so a special blocker鈥攄esigned by GSO scientist Edward Durbin鈥� was used to block the copepod DNA and sequence the other DNA.

DNA sequencing technology has improved greatly in recent years to allow researchers to easily get millions of sequences at once, she says. Once Cleary got the information, she compared it with a database to figure out which animal or plant each sequence came from鈥攁 process that determined what the copepods ate just before they were caught.

It was an especially compelling project, says Cleary, because she could examine eating habits over the entire year. In the summer in Svalbard the sun never sets for months, and in the winter it never rises for months. And much of the coastal sea is covered in solid ice, so animals have to survive in 24-hour light and constant darkness.

Calanus copepods eat a lot of plant-like plankton, but since plants need light, there are few plant plankton in winter and early spring. Cleary wanted to know if Calanus also found things to eat during those months, and if so, what.

鈥淲e found that when a lot of plant plankton were around, the Calanus ate them. In the depths of winter there wasn鈥檛 much food we could detect in their stomachs,鈥� she says. 鈥淚n early spring and late summer鈥攚hen they weren鈥檛 hibernating but there also weren鈥檛 very many plant plankton around to eat鈥攖he Calanus ate some animal plankton.鈥�

Why is it important to know what Calanus eat? They are key in the food chain for many animals. Sadly, climate change is having a big impact on the polar regions, where there is less and less ice, Cleary says, and changes in the ice affect the amount of plant plankton.

鈥淯nderstanding the things Calanus eat under different circumstances over the year will help us think about how Calanus will be affected by climate change,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd this has implications for how organisms that eat Calanus, and those even higher up the food chain, will fare.鈥�

When she wasn鈥檛 doing her research, Cleary was enjoying the beauty of the island: crystal clear blue skies; majestic mountains; lush green Arctic tundra; and sparkling white glaciers and snow.

But living in the high Arctic is not without challenges, she says. Polar bears on the island made it unsafe to leave her small town of Longyearbyen (population 2,000) without a rifle: 鈥淟earning to shoot for self-defense against an attacking bear was a challenge. But you get used to carrying a rifle out hiking or skiing, and I never did see a bear.鈥�

The months of constant light and darkness took some getting used, she says, although once she adjusted it was 鈥渇reeing.鈥�

鈥淣o need to schedule your activities around daylight,鈥� she says. 鈥淥ne summer day we went kayaking until 1 in the morning. Winter skiing at 8 at night is just as nice as in the middle of the day.鈥�

Her colleagues spoke English, but she also learned a little Norwegian. 鈥淢ostly I learned to read things in the grocery store and say 鈥淛eg forstar ikke; snakker du engelsk?鈥� (I don鈥檛 understand; do you speak English?)

Weekends were spent hiking in the mountains and observing wildlife鈥攖he small Svalbard reindeer, ptarmigans with their feathered feet, fluffy white Arctic foxes. She also witnessed the dancing lights of the aurora borealis.

Now the San Francisco native is on her next adventure鈥攖his one in England as a post-doctoral researcher at the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, where she is working on single-celled plankton and free- floating DNA in the oceans.

鈥淢y favorite thing about my time in Norway was the wonderful people I got to work and hang out with,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t was a great experience and hopefully some day I鈥檒l be back.鈥�