Author Archive for mmaheigan

Call for Papers: SOLAS–OLAR Special Section on Greenhouse Gas Budgets Across the Land–Ocean Continuum

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Monday, December 29th, 2025 

SOLAS and Ocean–Land–Atmosphere Research (OLAR) are pleased to invite submissions to a special section entitled “Greenhouse Gas Budgets Across the Land–Ocean Continuum” throughout 2026.

Greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide) uptake, production and emission rates in near-coastal systems remain highly uncertain, yet their quantification is crucial to both adequately assess domestic and global inventories in view of ongoing climate change, and to enable accurate reporting as well as effective mitigation measures. This special section welcomes contributions addressing greenhouse gas cycling and emissions in coastal to offshore environments, spanning natural, climate change induced, and other anthropogenic sources/sinks (e.g. aquaculture, waste water plants, river discharge). The aim of the special section is to present a holistic synthesis of the current state-of-the-science in greenhouse gas budgets across the land-ocean continuum.

Key Highlights:
• Article Processing Charges (APCs) are fully waived
• Accepted manuscripts are eligible for a free figure polishing service provided by the China Central Academy of Fine Arts
• Submissions are encouraged throughout 2026
Authors can submit at https://www.editorialmanager.com/olar/ or visit the OLAR journal website at https://spj.science.org/journal/olar. When submitting, select the topic titled “Greenhouse gas budgets across the land-ocean continuum”.

New Air-Sea book chapter

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, December 19th, 2025 

Stanley, R. H. R. and Bell, T. G.: “Air-sea gas exchange and marine gases”, in: Treatise in Geochemistry, 3rd Edition ed., edited by: Andbar, A., and Weis, D., Elsevier, 2024.
Read it here

Mentee + Mentor opp at OSM26 with OAIC – sign up now

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Wednesday, December 17th, 2025 
Dear members of the air-sea interaction community,
We invite you to participate in a low time-commitment, flexible and hopefully helpful mentoring event at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Glasgow. We are setting up a near-peer mentoring program. We expect it to be about a 2 hour commitment for mentors or mentees – spending a bit of time before the meeting prepping and then having one in person get-together (coffee break, lunch, drinks, etc.) at OSM.. For those interested, we will be matching  participants with a next-stage mentor (i.e. grad student with postdoc, postdoc with early faculty, early faculty with late faculty) prior to the conference. The mentoring pair will pick a time that works for both of them to meet during the conference week – we recommend a coffee break on Monday or Tuesday or meeting up directly after sessions end one of those days, but the timing is completely up to you. We suggest that mentors and mentees email each other introductions before the event as well as coordinate schedules. There are cafes and pubs near the conference centers that you could use for your meeting, or you could meet in one of the common spaces of the conference center itself.
Anyone attending the conference is welcome to sign up, even though our committee focuses on researchers who work in the general field of the upper ocean, lower atmosphere, or the interactions between. Please use the link below to sign up if you want to be a mentor, a mentee or both. And please forward this email to friends and colleagues who you think might be interested.
Sign up link is here,
Best wishes, the OAIC (the Ocean Atmosphere Interaction Committee)

New BECS publication!

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Monday, December 15th, 2025 

The BECS WG paper Elucidating the Role of Marine Benthic Carbon in a Changing World was just published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

Schultz, C., Luo, J. Y., Brady, D. C., Fulweiler, R. W., Long, M. H., Petrik, C. M., et al. (2025). Elucidating the role of marine benthic carbon in a changing world. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 39, e2025GB008643.

https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GB008643

OCB turns 20! Please share how OCB has impacted your career trajectory

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Thursday, December 11th, 2025 

OCB turns 20! Please share how OCB has impacted your career trajectory

Tell us how OCB has impacted you

OSM26 OCB + community events

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Tuesday, November 25th, 2025 

Visit the OCB at booth 45 (exhibit hall map)

See list of OCB-relevant science sessions

Events & Workshops (full list) – includes lots of early career support!

SOLAS, OASIS, and CLIVAR Workshop FAIRSEAS: The Future of Internationally Coordinated Air-Sea Interactions Research – Feb. 21, 2026 (Edinburgh, Scotland – hybrid format) DETAILS

 

Agency Forums

 

Town Hall Meetings

Ocean Outcomes Sessions

A Microbial Conveyor Belt Beneath the South Pacific

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, October 17th, 2025 

Global overturning circulation is a planetary conveyor belt: dense waters sink around Antarctica, spread through the deep ocean for centuries, and eventually rise elsewhere, redistributing heat, nutrients, and carbon. But how does this slow, pervasive movement of water impact marine microbes?

 

To find out, researchers collected over 300 water samples spanning the full depth of the ocean along the GO-SHIP P18 line in the South Pacific. They found that microbial genomes cluster into six spatial cohorts that are not only delineated by depth, but also circulatory features, like Antarctic Bottom Water formation, and ventilation age. Distinct functional signatures also emerged across these circulation-driven zones. For example, genes for light harvesting and iron uptake dominate in surface waters, while adaptations for cold, high pressure, or anaerobic metabolism characterize deep and ancient waters. Antarctic Bottom Water communities also carry hallmarks of rapid genetic exchange, suggesting horizontal gene transfer may help microbes adapt as they sink into the deep ocean. Even in waters isolated from the atmosphere for over a thousand years, many microbial genomes have coverage patterns that imply active replication, demonstrating that long-isolated water masses still support active microbial populations. In considering patterns of microbial diversity, researchers also identified a pervasive “prokaryotic phylocline” in which richness spikes just below the surface mixed layer and remains high to full ocean depth, only dipping slightly in very old water.

These results demonstrate that physical circulation, not just temperature or nutrients, partitions the ocean into microbial biomes. Understanding this linkage is critical because microbes determine the amount of carbon that is recycled or stored long-term in the deep ocean. As climate change alters overturning circulation, the functioning of these hidden microbial ecosystems and their role in regulating atmospheric CO₂ may shift in unexpected ways.

Authors
Bethany C. Kolody (University of California San Diego; UC Berkeley; J. Craig Venter Institute)
Rohan Sachdeva (UC Berkeley)
Hong Zheng (J. Craig Venter Institute)
Zoltán Füssy (UC San Diego; J. Craig Venter Institute)
Eunice Tsang (UC Berkeley)
Rolf E. Sonnerup (University of Washington)
Sarah G. Purkey (UC San Diego)
Eric E. Allen (UC San Diego)
Jillian F. Banfield (UC Berkeley; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Monash University)
Andrew E. Allen (UC San Diego; JCVI)

Social media
Twitter/X: @science_doodles, @Scripps_Ocean, @JCVenterInst
Bluesky: @banfieldlab.bsky.social, @bethanykolody.bsky.social, @scrippsocean.bsky.social, @jcvi.org

 

 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv6903
Overturning circulation structures the microbial functional seascape of the South Pacific
Science

Marine plant metabolites give marine microbes gas

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, October 17th, 2025 

A recent study in Nature Geosciences observed high concentrations of methane overlying permeable (sand) sand sediments in bays in Denmark and Australia. These environments are not one would expect to see methane because they are highly oxygenated and the high concentrations of sulfate in seawater typically inhibit methanogenesis. The authors showed that the methane was not being imported from local groundwater using geochemical methods. Using a combination of biogeochemical, microbial isolation, culturing and genomic approaches, revealed that methane was being produced by fast growing microbes resistant to oxygen exposure using plant produced substrates such as dimethylsulfide and amines. This work shows that where marine plants such as seaweed and seagrass grow and accumulate there may be high and sporadic production of methane. This has implications for how we account for the carbon sequestering capacity of coastal environments and the climate impact of increasing algal blooms such as coastal Ulva and the great sargassum bloom.

Authors
Perran Cook (Monash University)
Ning Hall (University of free spirit)

 

 

IIOSC 2025 + IIOE-2 ECR opp

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, October 10th, 2025 

IIOSC – 2025, International Indian Ocean Science Conference – 2025: Celebrating 10 years of the Second International Indian Ocean Expedition

1-5 December 2025 at INCOIS, Hyderabad, India

Website: https://iiosc2025.incois.gov.in/

Important Dates

———————————————–

We are pleased to announce that applications are now open for new core committee members of the Early Career Scientists Network (ECSN) of the Second International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE-2). The ECSN provides a platform for early career researchers working on Indian Ocean science to connect, collaborate, and contribute to the broader goals of the IIOE-2. Eligibility criteria: 1. Applicants should be either a PhD student, postdoctoral researcher, or scientist with less than 10 years since obtaining their PhD or under the age of 40 (whichever comes first). 2. Applicants must be actively engaged in Indian Ocean research. If you are interested, please complete the application form attached to this e-mail and send it to ecsn.iioe@gmail.com. The deadline for submission is 24 October 2025. We encourage motivated early career scientists to apply, and kindly ask you to re-distribute this call within your network so it can reach as many eligible colleagues as possible.

From smoke to sea, how wildfire ash reshapes ocean microbial life

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, September 26th, 2025 

When wildfire smoke drifts over the ocean, what happens beneath the waves? As wildfires change in nature and become more frequent, it’s increasingly important to understand how ash deposition affects the ocean’s smallest, yet most essential, inhabitants.

Figure 1. Conceptual illustration of coastal wildfires. Coarse-mode smoke including ash, rich in organic matter and low in minerals, is likely to settle near the fire source. Fine-mode smoke, with lower organic content and higher mineral composition, disperses farther. Wildfire smoke deposition can introduce both fertilizing nutrients, such as inorganic nitrogen and iron, and more toxic compounds, including dissolved organic matter (DOM) species like aromatic hydrocarbons, affecting marine trophic levels. Additionally, wildfire smoke on the ocean surface may alter sunlight penetration, impacting phytoplankton photosynthesis.

In a recent study, the authors investigated how wildfire ash leachate influences coastal microbial communities. Through field incubations along the California coast, we found that ash-derived dissolved organic matter (DOM) increased bacterioplankton specific growth rates and organic matter remineralization, while leaving bacterial growth efficiency unchanged. This suggests that the added DOM was primarily used to fuel basic cellular functions rather than biomass production. Meanwhile, microzooplankton grazing declined, even as phytoplankton division rates remained stable, hinting at a decoupling of predator-prey dynamics that could promote phytoplankton accumulation.

Pre-existing phytoplankton biomass had a greater influence on microbial responses than the chemical composition of the ash itself. In low-biomass waters, bacteria more readily consumed the ash-derived DOM. In contrast, in high-biomass waters, the leachate was less bioavailable, potentially allowing more refractory ash-derived carbon to accumulate. These baseline differences appeared to influence phytoplankton size structure: smaller cells increased in high-biomass settings, while larger cells became more prevalent in low-biomass waters. These shifts may have implications for nutrient cycling, food web structure, and carbon export pathways, depending on how microbial activity and community composition respond in situ.

 

Authors
Nicholas Baetge (Oregon State University)
Kimberly Halsey (Oregon State University)
Erin Hanan (University of Nevada, Reno)
Michael Behrenfeld (Oregon State University)
Allen Milligan (Oregon State University)
Jason Graff (Oregon State University)
Parker Hansen (Oregon State University)
Craig Carlson (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Rene Boiteau (University of Minnesota)
Eleanor Arrington (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Jacqueline Comstock (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Elisa Halewood (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Elizabeth Harvey (University of New Hampshire)
Norm Nelson (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Keri Opalk (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Brian Ver Wey (Oregon State University)

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