From Bio. Dept. Adds “Frump” on the SB Statesman, May 14, 1963.
There has been a new addition to the Biology staff of State University at Stony Brook recently. No, it’s not another professor, but a new boat for marine biological research.
The 28-foot boat, named Frump, for an organism in biology examinations at Stony Brook, is used mainly for Plankton towing in the school’s marine research program, under the direction of associate professor of biology, Dr. George C. Williams.
The boat has an inboard motor, and a semi-enclosed cabin, which makes it a vast improvement over -the small outboard skiff that was previously used
The boat tows plankton nets with metal canisters attached to the end of the nets for collecting the samples. After a sufficient number of specimens been taken, they have to be sorted, identified, counted and measured.
Dr. Williams is working grant from the National Science Foundation. The purpose of the research is to investigate the relationship of environments factors to the distribution of the egg and larval stages of fish. Another goal of the research is to discover new statistical techniques for explaining the variations in different plankton communities.
