Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release                               May 3, 1999

Lawrence University Science Colloquium Examines Relationship between 
Plankton and Algae on Lake Winnebago
	
          APPLETON, WIS. -- Bart De Stasio, assistant professor of biology at
Lawrence University, discusses his on-going research on the relationship
between algae and the small crustaceans that form the base of the food chain
in the Lawrence University science hall colloquium, "Ecology and Genetics of
Lake Winnebago Plankton:  A Story of Toxins and Time Travelers."  The
address, Thursday, May 13 at 4:15 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 161, is free
and open to the public.
     De Stasio will focus on the last two weeks of June, when a dramatic
drop in the population density of water fleas known as daphnia annually
occurs.  Field and laboratory studies point to toxins produced by blue-green
algae as a major culprit in the population crash.  De Stasio will discuss
how daphnia are able to genetically survive from generation to generation by
producing egg capsules that become "time travelers" -- remaining dormant in
the lake bed for years and even decades, enabling them to avoid the toxin
summer conditions of the lake.     	
     A specialist in evolutionary ecology and aquatic biology, De Stasio
joined the Lawrence faculty in 1992.  He earned his Ph.D. in biology from
Cornell University.