ý.,,: V. ý ýý . - Nottingham eTheses - University of Nottingham

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was funded by Unilever. The Antarctic phase of the research was
supported by an Australian Antarctic Science Advisory Committee grant to Professor J.
Laybourn-Parry. I would firstly like to thank my supervisors, Professor Johanna
Laybourn-Parry, Dr. Christine Dodd and Dr. Phil Hill for their support, guidance and
patience throughout the study, as well as for their un-ending enthusiasm for the research
which helped me through the long Antarctic winter.
I would like to extend my thanks Dr. David Bell for his invaluable help with the
phylogenetic analysis, David Fowler and John Corrie for their patience with my
impatience, various people in Food Microbiology
for helping me to understand molecular
biology, including Dr. Sharon Johnson, Dr. Timothy Aldsworth, Tania Perehenic, Danilo
Ercolini, Dr. Sarah Mills, Nicola Cummings and especially Catherine Loc-Carrillo for
never giving up on a pseudo-microbiologist.
I would like to thank a number of the staff at
Unilever, including Joy Wilkinson, Patricia Quail and Allen Griffiths for their support,
Sarah Twigg for her help with the SPLAT analysis and Mark Berry for overseeing the
project.
I must also show my great appreciation to the staff of the Australian Antarctic
Division, particularly to Trevor Bailey, Dr. Harvey Marchant, Debbie Lang and Vicki
Norris. I would also like to thank the Davis Station ANARE expeditioners (1999-2000)
for their assistance with fieldwork and all things musical, as well as for making my time
in Antarctica one of the best of my life. Special thanks to Ray Bajinskis, Frederick Jobin
and Brendan Hill for their exemplary effort on field trips and to Brad French for always
being one step lower.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their never ending emotional support
and friendship throughout my life and for giving me the power to fulfil my dreams.
ix