2024 Excellence in Partnering Award

The National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) is pleased to announce that the Piloting Biological Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations Program (Bio-GO-SHIP) on US cruises: Towards a global analysis of large-scale changes to ocean plankton systems project is the 2024 recipient of the NOPP Excellence in Partnering Award. The Excellence in Partnering Award is given annually to a NOPP project that best exemplifies the NOPP’s objective of developing a successful network of partnerships to advance the ocean sciences. Bio-GO-SHIP is led by Dr. Adam Martiny of the University of California Irvine. The team consists of members from six institutions: Harriet Alexander of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Jason Graff of Oregon State University, Nicole Poulton of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, Luke Thompson of the Northern Gulf Institute and the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, and Sophie Clayton from the National Oceanography Centre, UK. 

Drs. Jason Graff, Nicholas Baetge, Toby Westberry (OSU Botany & Plant Pathology, The Phytoplankton Ecophysiology Lab) and Tara Conrad (MSc with Drs. Kimberly Halsey and Michael Behrenfeld) are currently in the field to collect surface ocean validation measurements in support of the hyperspectral ocean color instrument that was launched last year as part of the NASA PACE satellite. They are working aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship John P. Tully in collaboration with scientists from the Line P and La Perouse long-term sampling programs. Together, the programs will last approximately one month and cover both coastal-shelf and open ocean ecosystems.  Conrad, Baetge and Graff pictured below in front of the CCGS Tully.

Jason Graff was recently nominated and selected to serve on the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) Scientific Steering Committee (SSC). He will serve as a member of the steering committee from 2025-2027. The committee provides leadership to the OCB Project Office and the broader OCB community by helping to identify research priorities and promote, plan, and coordinate collaborative, multidisciplinary research opportunities on marine biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem processes within the U.S. and with international partners.

To learn more about the OCB and it role in ocean science and the research community please visit https://www.us-ocb.org/about/.

from Posies & Pathogens

It can be difficult to know if the time and effort you are putting into the review process is useful for others or if it is time well spent. Acknowledgments such as this are a nice reminder that this work is important and appreciated.

Three new publications from our group are posted, including a mic drop by Dr. K. Bisson for “The National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy”!

We have a new opening in our research group to work on the NASA PACE Validation Project. See https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/phytoplanktonecophysiologylab/opportunities-to-join-our-lab/ for details.

In late 2023, Kassondra Watson was awarded the NASA Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology Award (FINESST). The prestigious three year award for promising graduate students will support the research “Dynamics and Decadal Changes in Marine Phytoplankton Blooms Captured in the Ocean Color Remote Sensing Record” through mid-2026.

The overarching objective of this research project is to improve our understanding of open ocean phytoplankton blooms through NASA remote sensing assets, how they are changing in time, and how these changes are linked to physical ocean properties influenced by climate variability.

Congratulations Kassondra!

A new paper is out today that reviews the ocean science community’s needs and upcoming opportunities for obtaining phytoplankton community composition in the surface ocean using satellites, and particularly, a soon to be launched satellite with advanced capabilities – the NASA PACE Ocean Color Instrument.

Phytoplankton composition from sPACE: Requirements, opportunities, and challenges

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2023.113964

A new paper is out, led by N. Baetge from the Phytoplankton Ecophysiology Col(Lab)oration, that looks at the diel changes in optical properties of three phytoplankton species. The diel changes observed in bio-optical properties differed in both timing and magnitude across phytoplankton species. These results have important implications for remote sensing observations and the impact of phytoplankton community composition on the optical properties of interest.

https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.12493