The research vessel Atlantic Explorer sailed from BIOS in June sporting a new instrument package on its mast and bow designed to measure climate-relevant, constantly shifting gases, moisture, and heat between the ocean and the atmosphere.

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.

Justin Smith was raised in a fishing family in Gig Harbor, Washington, but a crash in the local fishing economy diverted him from the family business. Knowing he liked ships and being on the water, he decided to explore oceanography in college. Within his first month at the University of Hawaii, he discovered the Hawaii Ocean Time-series program and the research vessel Kilo Moana. His volunteer position on the ship led to a job in the physical oceanography lab. By graduation in 2009 he had logged 220 days at sea, and was inspired to pursue a hands-on, “jack-of-all-trades” career as a marine technician in the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) fleet.  

Quinn Montgomery, 23, a senior at the University of San Diego, is one of eight students at BIOS this semester participating in the Institute’s annual Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. During their 12-week stay on Bermuda, students conduct independent projects under the supervision of BIOS faculty and staff, with the support of National Science Foundation funding.

What keeps you up at night? Barking dogs, traffic in the city, perhaps noisy neighbors? For Samm Newton, a graduate student in the Oregon State University (OSU) Environmental Arts and Humanities program, it’s the challenges of connecting the public with the complex, global environmental threats facing society.

At age 19, New Jersey native Rick Verlini first stepped on a fishing boat in Alaska, launching a career at sea that has spanned 38 years. Now 57, Verlini works for BIOS as a port captain, where he said he’s proud to assist scientists and “work on behalf of a top-notch ship’s crew.”

Hydrostation S, the world’s longest-running hydrographic time-series with a location offshore Bermuda, has received a commitment for another five years of support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The funding includes $900,000 for research and $3.1 million to support 120 days of research at sea on board the BIOS-operated research vessel Atlantic Explorer.

Acting U.S. Consul General Tom Edwardsen visited BIOS on June 22 for a tour of the Institute led by President and CEO Bill Curry. The two-hour tour gave Edwardsen, who is expected to remain in his post until this summer, an opportunity to learn about BIOS’s research and education programs.

In early August, a team of researchers with the multi-year, multi-institutional BIOS-SCOPE (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences – Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology) program completed their seventh research cruise aboard the BIOS-operated research vessel Atlantic Explorer. For four days, 13 scientists from eight institutions came together to study the unique microbial communities that develop in the Sargasso Sea during the summer, as well as the dissolved organic matter (DOM) they produce, consume, and redistribute throughout the water column.

Two types of zooplankton will be featured at the Bermuda National Gallery (BNG) beginning this summer in a mixed-media exhibit dedicated to reminding us how art can be used to more deeply appreciate our place on this planet. Copepods, small marine crustaceans, and pteropods, tiny marine snails also known as “sea butterflies,” are the focus of this collaborative effort between BIOS and BNG. Some of the artists with works displayed in the series have spent time at BIOS working alongside zooplankton ecologists Leocadio Blanco-Bercial and Amy Maas as they investigate some of the ocean’s smallest and most critically important members of the marine food web.