Donal Thomas Manahan (b. 15 Oct 1953) is an Irish-born American marine scientist and comparative physiologist. He is known for Antarctic and deep oceanic research on the physiology and ecology of marine invertebrates and their larvae in extreme environments, and for his interest in the role of dissolved organic material as a larval food source.

Education and career

Donal Manahan was educated at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Wales in Bangor, Wales, where he earned his Ph.D. studying in the laboratory of Dennis J. Crisp. From 1980 to 1983, he was a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Grover C. Stephens at the

University of California at Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

. Manahan joined faculty at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

in 1983. Manahan has served as Chairman of the

United States National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Polar Research Board and he served on the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

(NSF) Decadal Group-Planning Committee for Ocean Sciences (2000). He has also served on NSF Federal Advisory Committees to the Director from NSF's Office of Polar Programs. Manahan Peak in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

was named in honor of his contributions to research and education on that continent.

Selected publications

* Manahan, D.T. and D.J. Crisp. 1982. The role of dissolved organic material in the nutrition of pelagic larvae:

Amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha am ...

uptake by bivalve veligers. ''American Zoologist'' 22: 635-646. * Manahan, D.T., S.H. Wright, G.C. Stephens and M.A. Rice. 1982. Transport of dissolved amino acids by the mussel, '' Mytilus edulis'': Demonstration of net uptake from seawater by HPLC analysis. ''Science'' 215:1253-1255. * Manahan, D.T., S.H. Wright, and G.C. Stephens. 1983. Simultaneous determination of net uptake of 16 amino acids by a marine bivalve. ''American Journal of Physiology, Regulatory Integrative and Comparative Physiology'' 244:R832-R838 * Jaeckle, W. and D.T. Manahan. 1989. Amino acid uptake and metabolism by larvae of the marine worm ''Urechis caupo'' ( Echiura), a new species in

axenic In biology, axenic (, ) describes the state of a culture in which only a single species, variety, or strain of organism is present and entirely free of all other contaminating organisms. The earliest axenic cultures were of bacteria or unicellul ...

culture. ''Biological Bulletin'' 176:317-326. * Manahan, D.T. 1990. Adaptations by invertebrate larvae for nutrient acquisition from sea water. ''American Zoologist'' 30:147-160. * Marsh, A.G., L.S. Mullineaux, C.M. Young, and D.T. Manahan. 2001. Larval dispersal potential of the tubeworm ''

Riftia pachyptila ''Riftia pachyptila'', commonly known as the giant tube worm and less commonly known as the Giant beardworm, is a marine invertebrate in the phylum Annelida (formerly grouped in phylum Pogonophora and Vestimentifera) related to tube worms co ...

'' at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. ''Nature'' 411:77-80. * Pace, D.A., A.G Marsh, P.K. Leong, A.J. Green, D. Hedgecock, and D.T. Manahan. 2006. Physiological bases of genetically determined variation in growth of marine invertebrate larvae: A study of growth heterosis in the bivalve ''

Crassostrea gigas The Pacific oyster, Japanese oyster, or Miyagi oyster (''Magallana gigas''), is an oyster native to the Pacific coast of Asia. It has become an introduced species in North America, Australia, Europe, and New Zealand. Etymology The genus ''Maga ...

''. ''Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology'' 335:188-209. * Moore, M., and D.T. Manahan. 2007. Variation among females in egg lipid content and developmental success of echinoderms from McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. ''Polar Biology'' 30:1245-1252. * Pace, D.A. and D.T. Manahan. 2007. Efficiencies and costs of larval growth in different food environments ( Asteroidea: '' Asterina miniata''). ''Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology'' 353:89-106. * Meyer, E. and D.T. Manahan. 2009. Nutrient uptake by marine invertebrates: Cloning and functional analysis of amino acid transporter genes in developing sea urchins ('' Strongylocentrotus purpuratus''). ''Biological Bulletin''. 217:6–24. * Meyer, E. and D.T. Manahan. 2010. Gene expression profiling of genetically-determined growth variation in bivalve larvae (''Crassostrea gigas''). ''Journal of Experimental Biology''. 213:749-758.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Manahan, Donal T. 1953 births Living people People from Rancho Palos Verdes, California Irish emigrants to the United States Explorers of Antarctica American Antarctic scientists Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science American physiologists 21st-century American biologists