New research shows that marine heatwaves can reshape ocean food webs, which in turn can slow the transport of carbon to the deep sea and hamper the ocean’s ability to buffer against climate change.
New research shows that marine heatwaves can reshape ocean food webs, which in turn can slow the transport of carbon to the deep sea and hamper the ocean’s ability to buffer against climate change. The study, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications today, was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from MBARI, the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, the Hakai Institute, Xiamen University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Southern Denmark, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
To explore the impacts of marine heatwaves on ocean food webs and carbon flows, the research team combined multiple datasets that tracked biological conditions in the water column in the Gulf of Alaska for more than a decade. This region experienced two successive marine heatwaves during this time, one from 2013 to 2015 known as “The Blob,” and another from 2019 to 2020.
“The ocean has a biological carbon pump, which normally acts like a conveyor belt carrying carbon from the surface to the deep ocean. This process is powered by the microscopic organisms that form the base of the ocean food web, including bacteria and plankton,” said the lead author, Mariana Bif, previously a research specialist at MBARI and now an assistant professor in the Department of Ocean Sciences at the Rosenstiel School. “For this study, we wanted to track how marine heatwaves affected those microscopic organisms to see if those impacts were connected to the amount of carbon being produced and exported to the deep ocean.”
Read more at: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Robotic biogeochemical Argo (BGC-Argo) floats log a trove of data about oceanographic and biological conditions, taking the pulse of ocean health and helping researchers understand the impacts of climate change on the ocean. (Photo Credit: Sudheesh Keloth)
