OCB Science Highlights

OCB Science Highlights

If you would like to have your recent publications featured on the OCB website and eNewsletter please contact ocb_news@whoi.edu. View our guidelines for writing a OCB Science Highlight.

Arctic fjord fungi help lock carbon into the seafloor

September28,2026

What determines whether freshly produced organic carbon is stored in Arctic fjord sediments or quickly returned to the atmosphere as CO₂? While bacteria have long been considered the dominant microbial players in this process, the role of marine fungi has remained largely unexplored.     We investigated microbial carbon cycling across Kongsfjorden, Svalbard, an arctic […]

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Taking a Ride on the C-SAW

September28,2026

Those of us working across the land-ocean aquatic continuum (LOAC), aka the terrestrial-aquatic interface (TAI), aka estuaries and coastal waters, often note that our estuaries and coastal waters tend to get darker after large rain events. The “darkness” comes from substances that absorb and scatter light and a good portion of these materials are collectively […]

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Sinking phytodetrital aggregates and fecal pellets produced by mesopelagic crustaceans seed deep-sea particle communities in the Southern Ocean

September28,2026

How do processes in the sub-surface ocean (500 – 1000 m) impact particle communities that sink into the deep ocean (> 3000 m)? We highlight two observed pathways of particle flux to the deep sea from two ocean basin-wide cruises in the Southern Ocean sampled with an Underwater Vision Profiler (UVP5), which is an underwater […]

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The North Atlantic’s microscopic carbon traffic controllers

August14,2026

Each year, as the North Atlantic transitions from turbulent spring mixing to layered summer stratification, a key question emerges: How do these seasonal changes reshape bacterial host-virus interactions and control carbon flux? In a recent study published in Microorganisms, researchers show that seasonal stratification regulates viral activity by modulating encounter rates between viruses and distinct […]

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Impacts of warming and circulation slowdown on future ocean carbon cycle feedback

August14,2026

The ocean has absorbed a quarter of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, mitigating changes. However, predicting the future fate of this ‘sink’ is challenging as marine carbon is regulated by a complex set of interacting processes that respond differently to warming. Our recent study teases apart these interactions with a novel mechanistic carbon decomposition and attribution framework […]

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Do ecological feedbacks matter in a changing world?

August14,2026

Interactions among organisms shape ecological dynamics, while exchanges with the environment alter physical and chemical conditions. Examples of these include predator-prey dynamics (biotic interaction), the release of nutrients through excretion (chemical changes), or the development of coral reefs (physical changes). Together, these processes can generate feedback loops, which may amplify or buffer the impacts of […]

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Beyond carbonate chemistry: Biogenic silica dissolution may weaken carbon sequestration under ocean alkalinity enhancement

August14,2026

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) is a promising carbon dioxide removal strategy, yet evaluating its net carbon removal potential requires understanding not only seawater carbonate chemistry, but also biological feedbacks that may influence long-term carbon sequestration. While most OAE studies focus on resolving immediate responses during biomass production, much less attention is paid to processes occurring […]

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BGC-Argo floats reveal shifting nitrogen cycling in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific

August14,2026

Oxygen-deficient zones are regions of the ocean where microbes consume nitrate in lieu of oxygen. This drives major losses of biologically available nitrogen. In a recent study, we used a BGC-Argo float in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific to remotely observe these processes over nearly three years. Using a new method to extract nitrite from […]

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Phytoplankton respond more consistently to nutrient pulses than marine heat waves

June29,2026

How do phytoplankton respond to short-term changes in temperature and nutrient availability, and how does this response vary under different baseline conditions? A recent study perturbed a summer plankton community by manipulating nutrient concentrations and temperature (±4°C) in short-term controlled microcosms to assess the relative impacts of each factor on phytoplankton physiology and community structure. […]

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Detecting the ocean’s eddy carbon pump globally—it’s smaller than we thought.

June29,2026

How much carbon do ocean eddies actually pump into the ocean interior? A decade ago, a landmark study (Omand et al, 2015) showed that turbulent eddies at ocean fronts can grab carbon-rich surface water and plunge it hundreds of meters down in a matter of days—back-of-the-envelope extrapolations suggest this “eddy subduction pump” could export as […]

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