{"id":71,"date":"2019-07-30T19:16:36","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T19:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/?p=71"},"modified":"2019-08-13T19:15:30","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T19:15:30","slug":"umces-led-research-cruise-explores-deep-ocean-in-atlantic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/2019\/07\/30\/umces-led-research-cruise-explores-deep-ocean-in-atlantic\/","title":{"rendered":"UMCES-led research cruise explores deep ocean in Atlantic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Scientists seek to better understand the marine carbon cycle and its role in the global climate <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science<\/a> research cruise leaves for the deep Atlantic Ocean 50 miles southeast of Bermuda on Monday for a week of science at sea aboard the 171-foot R\/V Atlantic Explorer. Scientists will be sampling the depths of the ocean and analyzing bacterial diversity and function to better understand the marine carbon cycle in the ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo fully understand the carbon cycle you have to understand\nwhat\u2019s happening in the ocean,\u201d said chief scientist Michael Gonsior<\/strong><\/a> at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.\n\u201c80% of organics dissolved in the ocean are unknown on the structural level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The research vessel appropriately named the “Atlantic Explorer”.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The team of scientists and graduate students will be collecting water samples at different depths from oligotrophic, deep blue water\u2014every 200 meters all the way to nearly 5,000 meters\u2014from a fixed point in the Atlantic Ocean. The incremental sampling will provide a diversity of marine organisms because the community will change depending on the depths. Then they will use next generation sequencing tools to sequence the genomes of bacterial communities. Their goal: to understand how cyanobacteria contribute to the marine carbon cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ocean plays an important role in the\nglobal carbon cycle. Nearly 50% of CO2 generated by\nhuman activities, such as fossil fuel burning, is absorbed by the ocean. Carbon moves\nin and out of the ocean daily, but it is also stored there for thousands of\nyears. The ocean is called a carbon \u201csink\u201d because it takes up more carbon from\nthe atmosphere than it gives up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis\ncollaborative study will lead to a better understanding on the role of\nmicrobial carbon pump processing and transport of recalcitrant DOM into the\ndeep ocean,\u201d said Gonsior. \u201cIt has the potential to fundamentally advance our\nunderstanding of a presumably important marine CDOM source as well as\naddressing key issues in marine carbon cycling. We are on the hunt to describe\nat the structural level the first rather stable fluorescent organic compounds\nin the open ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Feng Chen (left) and Michael Gonsior (right) are chief investigators of this research expedition.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Scientists will be investigating a specific component\nof organic matter in the oceans called chromophoric dissolved organic matter,\nor  CDOM, which stores some of the\nocean\u2019s carbon and also plays a pivotal role in shielding\ncreatures undersea from harmful ultraviolet radiation.\nIn fact, the dark deep ocean holds a substantial amount of this colored\nmaterial, even though the water appears crystal clear. Sources of this CDOM\nremain largely unknown, and this project provides a novel path for integrating\nthe chemical property of CDOM with microbial structure and activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preliminary research show that it\u2019s not all from land\nsources or from the atmosphere, but tiny bacteria called picocyanobacteria may\nbe releasing CDOM into the oceans as a result of a viral interaction. Once researchers return from\nthe cruise, they will investigate how this organic material breaks down and\neffects microbial communities during this process.  The bacterial communities in the ocean are\nchanging, and researchers will be looking at how the changing conditions might\nbe affecting populations and the rate of degradation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe goal is to try to understand how bacteria are involved in the\ndegradation of this organic matter,\u201d said co-chief investigator <\/strong>Feng Chen<\/strong><\/a> of the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology<\/strong><\/a>,<\/strong> who will be bringing the bacterial samples back to the lab and\nsequencing their genomes.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UMCES team includes Associate Professor Michael Gonsior, post-doctoral research Leanne Powers and graduate student Madeleine Lahm; Professor Feng Chen and graduate students Daniel Fucich, Ana Sosa, Menqi Sun;, and Assistant Professor Jacob Cram<\/strong><\/a> and research assistant Ashley Collins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UMCES researchers will be joined by Professor Norbert Hertkorn of\nthe Helmholtz Center for Environmental Health, Munich, Germany and Shannon\nLeigh McCallister, Associate Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University, and\nresearchers from the University of Delaware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nis part one of the research project funded by the National Science Foundation.\nNext year researchers will be exploring what is happening in the Pacific Ocean\nand what the differences are between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science research cruise leaves for the deep Atlantic Ocean 50 miles southeast of Bermuda on Monday for a week of science at sea aboard the 171-foot R\/V Atlantic Explorer. Scientists will be sampling the depths of the ocean and analyzing bacterial diversity and function to better understand the marine carbon cycle in the ocean. Read More …<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276,"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/science.umces.edu\/science-at-sea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}