Research over the past half-century has built a coherent, conceptual framework for biogeochemical dynamics in natural microbial ecosystems, but quantitative biological and systems biology approaches are only just now beginning to be applied to natural microbial systems. In this project, the researchers intend to apply genome-enabled quantitative systems biology approaches to describe the model open ocean ecosystem at the long-term time series study Station ALOHA, located north of Oahu. After 25 years of intensive sampling, Station ALOHA has now become one of the most well-studied open-ocean ecosystems, providing a global reference point for tracking microbial carbon cycling and biogeochemical dynamics in the sea, as well as documenting the changing global carbon cycle, ocean acidification and other ocean ecosystem changes only observable through long time-series studies. Scientists at station ALOHA are now in a unique position to model the carbon cycle and the microbial players that mediate it, in this globally important, natural, model microbial ecosystem.
Proposer’s Name: Ed DeLong, University of Hawaii at Manoa