Changing Marine Ecosystems

Humans depend on the ocean for many goods and services, including fisheries and aquaculture production, water purification, shoreline protection, and recreation. Marine food webs comprise a delicate balance among primary producers, intermediate consumers, and top predators, including humans. Marine ecosystems are experiencing unprecedented rates of change associated with rising atmospheric CO₂ levels and climate change, including concurrent shifts in temperature, circulation, stratification, nutrient input, oxygen content, and ocean acidification. The OCB community is interested in how marine ecosystems are responding to environmental change and the long-term evolutionary implications of those responses. This includes physiological and molecular-level responses of individuals, as well as population-level shifts that alter community structure, trophic dynamics, and diversity.

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Activities

OCB/GEOTRACES Workshop Biogeochemical cycling of trace elements within the ocean: A synthesis workshop (2016)

Forecasting ENSO Impacts on Marine Ecosystems of the US West Coast (2016)

OCB Scoping Workshop Trait-based Approaches to Ocean Life (2015)

OCB Scoping Workshop Improving predictive biogeochemical models through single cell-based analyses of marine plankton physiological plasticity, genetic diversity and evolutionary processes (2014)

OCB Scoping Workshop The molecular biology of biogeochemistry: Using molecular methods to link ocean chemistry with biological activity (2010)

OCB Scoping Workshop New Frontiers in Southern Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (2009)

Products & Publications

Barton, A.D., S. Dutkiewicz, K.H. Andersen, Ø. Fiksen, M. Follows, C. Mouw, N. Record, and T. Rynearson (2016). Report on the “Trait-based approaches to ocean life” scoping workshop, October 5-8, 2015, U.S. Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Program, 35 pp., DOI: 10.1575/1912/8017.

Boyd, PW, Collins, S, Dupont, S, Fabricius, K, Gattuso, J-P, Havenhand, J, Hutchins, DA, McGraw, CM, Riebesell, U, Vichi, M, Biswas, H, Ciotti, A, Dillingham, P, Gao, K, Gehlen, M, Hurd, CL, Kurihawa, H, , Navarro, J, Nilsson, GE, Passow, U and Portner, H-O (2019). SCOR WG149 Handbook to support the SCOR Best Practice Guide for ‘Multiple Drivers’ Marine Research. http://dx.doi.org/10.25959/5c92fdf0d3c7a  (Website: https://meddle-scor149.org/)

EarthCube Oceanography and Geobiology Environmental 'Omics (ECOGEO) Research Coordination Network Workshop 1 Report (November 2015)

GeoMICS (Global scale Microbial Interactions across Chemical Surveys)

Hofmann, E., Sarmiento, J., Smith, W. (2010). A U.S. Southern Ocean Carbon, Ecosystems and Biogeochemistry Science Plan, a report of the Southern Ocean Scoping Workshop sponsored by the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Program and the NSF Office of Polar Programs (Workshop Steering Committee Members: C. Deutsch, E. Hofmann, T. Ito, N. Lovenduski, J. Russell, J. Sarmiento, W. Smith, P. Strutton)

Moffett, J. et al. (2011) The Molecular Biology of Biogeochemistry: Using Molecular Methods to Link Ocean Chemistry with Biological Activity, Report of the OCB Scoping Workshop held November 8-10, 2010 in Los Angeles, CA, 28 pp.