Abstract. Physical and biological processes of the marine ecosystem have a high spatial and temporal variability, whose study is possible only through high resolution and synoptic observations. The T-FLAP (Temperature and Fluorescence LAunchable Probe) was charted in order to answer to the claim of a cost effective temperature and fluorescence expendable profiler, to be used in ships of opportunity. The development of the expendable fluorimeter has followed similar concepts of the XBT (a wire conducting the signal to a computer card), but differently from that, T-FLAP was developed with an electronic system that can be improved and adapted to several variables measure channels. Commercial components were utilized to reach the aim of a low-cost probe: a glass bulb temperature resistor for the temperature measurement, blue LEDs, a photodiode and available selective glass filters, for fluorescence measurement. The measurement principle employed to detect phytoplankton's biomass is the active fluorescence. This method is an in vivo chlorophyll measure, that can get the immediate biophysical reaction of the cell inside the aquatic ecosystem; it is a non-disruptive method which gives a real time measure and avoids the implicit errors due to the manipulation of samples. The possibility of using continuous profiling probe, with an active fluorescence measurement, is very important in the study of phytoplankton in real time; it is the best way to follow the variability of sea productivity. In fact, because of the high time and space variability of phytoplankton, due to its capability to answer in a relatively short time to ecological variations in its environment and because of its characteristic patchiness, there isn't a precise quantitative estimation of the biomass present in the Mediterranean sea.
Concept for the controlled plane wave exposure for animal experiments using a parabolic reflector
