A world-class ocean science research facility, the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) inspires the next generation of marine biologists, oceanographers, marine ecologists and more by providing K-12 and college students a captivating introduction to the science of the ocean. BIOS is now expanding its impact, joining Arizona State University as part of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory™. BIOS brings over 120 years of research and education on Earth’s largest biome to the world’s first laboratory dedicated to reshaping our relationship with our planet.

A collaboration between Arizona State University’s “Ask A Biologist” website and researchers and educators at BIOS is helping students understand the fundamental concept of taxonomy, or grouping and classifying organisms based on their physical characteristics. Claire Fox (right), BIOS science education officer, designed an online, interactive game that leads players through the use of a dichotomous key, a tool that helps scientists identify unknown organisms—in this case, species of fish or zooplankton found in Bermuda. The game, called “Keys to the Ocean,” is tied into the “Identification Keys” lesson that is offered through BIOS’s Curriculum Enrichment Program as a 2.5-hour workshop, which includes the opportunity for students to conduct a plankton tow aboard a research vessel and view live plankton under microscopes.The history of taxonomy—or the science of naming, describing, and classifying organisms—is as old as human language and speaks to a fundamental desire to understand and bring order to the natural world. A new online game developed in partnership between Arizona State University’s (ASU’s) Ask A Biologist website and BIOS is combining this fascination with ongoing research to teach students how to use a dichotomous key, a tool that helps scientists identify unknown organisms.

Humans continue to amplify global warming by emitting billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. A new study reveals that a distant human relative plays an outsize role in damping the impacts of this greenhouse gas by pumping large amounts of carbon from the ocean surface to the deep sea, where it contributes nothing to current warming.

In early 2021, Nicole Burt, then 22 years old, was in her fourth year of graduate studies at the University of Southampton in England. She was close to finishing her integrated master’s degree in marine biology and was putting final touches on her thesis, which focused on the effects of dissolved inorganic nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus compounds, on coral growth. Burt hoped to travel after graduation and started making plans to spend the summer conducting fieldwork in a tropical marine environment.

On February 16, 2023, BIOS published the second half of a two-part report on the local impacts of climate change in Bermuda. The new report, titled “Climate Change and Bermuda, Part II: Impacts and Societal Risk” was produced by the Bermuda Airport Authority’s Dr. Mark Guishard, a BIOS adjunct scientist and former Director of the Bermuda Weather Service, with the support of lead donor HSBC Bermuda.

Conducting research can be a career-defining opportunity for an undergraduate student. This experience helps build their CV for graduate school, it can open doors to internships and jobs, and many students present their results at international scientific conferences. Recognizing the increasingly critical role that independent research plays in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers, each fall BIOS welcomes a cohort of undergraduate interns as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program.

A photograph taken over 150 years ago, originally intended to document British overseas military installations in Bermuda, is now a historical reference point helping scientists measure the impacts of local sea-level rise. Although the subjects of the photograph were the Commissioner’s House and various fortifications along the slip in the Royal Naval Dockyard, the image also captured a fixed biological phenomenon that can be used to interpret sea-level: a stable community of cyanobacteria that lives just above the high-water mark.

Paul Gensbigler, 20, is no stranger to the water, having spent the past two years studying the health of the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States. A junior majoring in molecular and cellular biology at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Maryland, Gensbigler is researching the microbes that help control nutrient levels in the Bay. However, this January he traded the brackish waters of the northern Chesapeake for the salty waters of the northern Atlantic in a “Hopkins Intersession Abroad” program.

Living at the edge of darkness, the community of microbes and tiny animals in the ocean’s twilight zone upcycle nutrients to ensure their survival. A study led by researchers at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa revealed that small, free-floating animals called zooplankton rely mainly on an even smaller class of organisms, called microzooplankton, to consolidate the sparse waste products in the water and transform it into higher-quality food. The study was published in Limnology and Oceanography.

New research published in Nature has revealed the importance of mineral forms of iron in regulating the cycling of this bio-essential nutrient in the ocean.