On December 9th, 2022, 1-2 PM UTC we will have the Marine Biodiversity Networking Friday on Bio-GO-SHIP: Expanding biological ocean observations for plankton ecosystem science and monitoring to the global scale

Global-scale Ocean observing programs such as JGOFS, WOCE, and GO-SHIP have been operational since the late 1970s and have provided invaluable insights into changes in ocean heat content, oxygen loss, ventilation, and penetration of anthropogenic carbon. However, there has been no such global-scale monitoring of the upper ocean plankton community and metabolism, which are fundamental in driving important biogeochemical cycles.

• Bio-GO-SHIP aims to establish consistent global observations of plankton communities and their biogeochemical role in upper ocean processes with the following objectives:
• Use established sensors and mature technologies that can be deployed operationally and provide robust, high-quality data.
• Leverage concurrent physical and chemical observations.
• Build large datasets to track and quantify climate change impacts on the upper ocean ecosystem and metabolism.
• Provide a platform for testing and deploying new observing technologies and sensors.

This seminar will demonstrate how such a global biological observing project can advance our understanding of marine biodiversity. Plankton biodiversity is important for marine ecosystems, but possible controls are subject to much debate. We observed a clear global gradient with increasing diversity towards high latitudes. We did not find support for the species-energy, productivity, or dispersal hypotheses. Instead, surface nutrient depletion and selection for the small cell-sized lineage like Prochlorococcus and Pelagibacter explained much of the global trend in biodiversity. However, selection for small picoplankton lineages was superimposed on a diverse bacterial community with a mostly stable diversity. In addition to these broader diversity patterns, we also see the intra-specific selection for functional genes reflecting the nutritional environment. Thus, we can use variation in genome content as a ‘biosensor’ for nutrient stress type and severity in the ocean. Finally, we will present some preliminary results from the recent GO-SHIP P02 line where we deployed a combination of ’omics sampling, continuous flow cytometry, and optical sensors to understand the role of biological diversity in the regulation of primary production. We are also using samples collected on P02 to optimize standard operating procedures for processing omics samples for the next decade of Bio-GO-SHIP.

Programme (UTC):

• 1:00 PM – Welcome remarks, Maria Grigoratou (Science Officer, Mercator Ocean International, EU Office, G7 FSOI Coordination Centre)
• 1:05 PM – Luke Thompson (Associate Research Professor at Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University / AOML / NOAA)
• 1:25 PM – Sophie Clayton (Assistant Professor of Oceanography, Old Dominion University)
• 1:45 PM – Q&A, moderated by Maria Grigoratou
• 2:00 AM – Closing

Relevant Link:

• Bio-GO-SHIP

This is an Ocean Decade Event.