Collaborative efforts send profiler to work in the mesopelagic zones of the Atlantic Ocean

The exhibit explores the exquisite beauty of plankton and its crucial role not only in ocean ecosystems, but in how ocean health is critical to our survival and elemental to all life on our planet.

A diverse and abundant group of single-celled marine organisms, Rhizaria are known to affect carbon and other chemical cycles of the world’s oceans, but specifics are lacking. Research has been hampered by difficulties sampling, culturing and preserving many types of this protist super-group, and they have been underrepresented in models of global geochemical cycling as a result. Researchers and partners from two U.S. universities are seeking to change that narrative through a new three-year National Science Foundation-funded study.

Typically associated with the study of Earth’s upper atmosphere and beyond, satellites deployed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) also augment our understanding of Earth’s ecosystems, including critical information about the ocean such as locations of algal blooms and levels of marine photosynthesis.

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Conservation research in submarine caves is among the clearest and most compelling use-cases for a small observation-class ROV like Trident, which is why, last week, we delivered the very first ROV for Good Sofar Ocean Trident to Dr. Leocadio Blanco-Bercial at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences to study the hidden biodiversity in Bermuda’s Anchialine Caves.

A robot submarine is to be deployed in a bid to study microscopic organisms in the island’s underwater caves.

A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science is changing the way that biological oceanographers view the swimming and sinking behaviors of open ocean, or pelagic, snails. Pteropods and heteropods are small marine snails, most measuring on the order of millimeters to centimeters, that are found throughout the world’s ocean from the surface to depths of 3000 feet (1000 meters). Although small in size, these organisms play a vital role in the ocean’s food web and biogeochemical cycles, as well as the global carbon cycle.

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.

Now in its eighth year, BIOS-SCOPE is a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary initiative that annually gathers scientists from Bermuda, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States to explore fundamental questions about the ocean’s biogeochemical cycles and how diverse communities of marine microbes influence the carbon cycle and other fundamental processes and, ultimately, the planet’s ability to sustain life. An overarching goal of the project is to form and foster collaborations across scientific disciplines, an aspect that enables the team to advance their understanding of the interactions of organisms and compounds at various scales, across both time and ocean depths. Along the way, the principals and collaborators of BIOS-SCOPE (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences – Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology) have formed professional bonds and friendships that add value to the work. On the eve of the program’s eleventh cruise from ASU BIOS – with 18 scientists and two marine science technicians on board, Currents spoke with BIOS-SCOPE Co-Principal Investigators and adjunct faculty Craig Carlson (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Stephen Giovannoni (Oregon State University) and Investigator Rachel Parsons (ASU BIOS Microbial Ecology Laboratory) about the project’s past, present and future.