Taut foliations in punctured surface bundles, I

Given a fibred, compact, orientable 3-manifold with single boundarycomponent, we show that a fibration with fiber surface of negativeEuler characteristic can be perturbed to yield taut foliationsrealizing an open interval of boundary slopes about the boundaryslope of the fibration. These taut foliations extend to tautfoliations in the corresponding surgery manifolds. 2000 MathematicsSubject Classification: primary 57M25; secondary 57R30.