Growing up in Bermuda, Jessica Godfrey developed a fascination with the local corals and other sea life. While attending the island’s Saltus Grammar School, she studied oceanography, narrowing her interest to marine biology.

Climate change will challenge many of the processes that sustain life around the globe, but new research led by Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences provides a fresh look at the planet’s resiliency. The results reveal how microscopic ocean life that drives the carbon cycle in the Atlantic is adapting to warmer conditions. The news does not mean the end of the planet’s concerns, but it can help researchers better forecast the future.

In early May, scientists and research technicians with the BIOS-SCOPE (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences – Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology) program met for their first data workshop since 2019, after two years of cancellations due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. BIOS-SCOPE, a program for the study of microbial oceanography in the Sargasso Sea, started the workshops in 2018 as a way for team members to share their research progress, collaboratively evaluate data, outline manuscripts for publication in scientific journals, and identify new research directions.

BIOS training leads to diverse careers in marine and atmospheric sciences, and beyond

Climatologist Hans Christian Steen-Larsen joined BIOS in March as an adjunct scientist, to continue and expand his innovative research at the Tudor Hill Marine Atmospheric Observatory. Currently a researcher at the Center for Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen, Steen-Larsen has traversed the globe gathering data to reconstruct past climates and to improve current climate models.  At BIOS, he uses clues embedded in water molecules to better understand the climactic processes that drive evaporation from the ocean.

If you have ever watched a documentary about deep ocean exploration, you have probably heard that “95 percent of the ocean floor is unexplored.” In fact, we do have a global map of the ocean floor generated by satellite data that allows us to see features on the ocean floor larger than 3 miles (5 kilometers) in length. Missing from this picture, however, are the geologic features smaller than this size, not to mention millions of plants and animals inhabiting the deep ocean and seafloor.

In an innovative collaboration, BIOS molecular ecologist Leocadio Blanco-Bercial and reef ecologist Tim Noyes are exploring how DNA can be recovered from seawater to reveal which fish species are active on Bermuda’s reefs. As fish swim, water passing over their gills and waste passing through their guts all deliver sloughed off cells to the surrounding seawater, leaving a trail of genetic material behind them. Within that genetic material, a specific short sequence of DNA can be recovered by scientists and traced like a fingerprint to a single fish species. But to learn more about fish communities from the DNA sequences swirling in the seawater, scientists first need to document which sequence belongs to which species.

Mark Guishard, who heads the Risk Prediction Initiative at BIOS, was elected in June as a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, an organization of professionals and scientists dedicated to the understanding of weather and climate. He also received the designation Registered Meteorologist from the society’s chief executive Prof. Liz Bentley during their annual conference, held at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. “It is an honor and a privilege to be recognized by my peers in academia and the profession of meteorology,” he said. “This achievement comes from the support and encouragement of my family, teachers, employers, and mentors.” Guishard began his 20 years of work in atmospheric sciences with the Bermuda Weather Service in 1997, which he went on to direct for six years until 2012.

An interdisciplinary team of scientists joined forces in July for their first annual research cruise dedicated to revealing how specific microbes take up and transform organic matter within a web of ecological interactions in the waters southeast of Bermuda.

A global marine research project designed to justify marine protected areas worldwide is set to launch in Bermuda next spring and will include the expertise of BIOS coral reef scientist Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley.