Journal de biologie marine et d'océanographie

Toward an Adaptive Sampling Strategy to Understand the Sensitivity of Biogeochemical Province Boundaries to Climate Change

Francois Ribalet

Toward an Adaptive Sampling Strategy to Understand the Sensitivity of Biogeochemical Province Boundaries to Climate Change

Over the last three decades, extensive oceanographic surveys have been conducted to improve the understanding of large-scale circulation and biogeochemical cycles in the marine environment. The World Ocean Circulation Experiment, the Joint Global Ocean Flux and GEOTRACES programs, along with many other studies, demonstrate that microbial communities drive the biogeochemical cycling of the major elements (e.g., C, N, P, S) on our planet. The results of these studies indicate that marine microbes generate and recycle about half of the organic carbon produced on Earth and carry out all nitrogen fixation, ammonia oxidation, denitrification, sulfur reduction/oxidation, and mediate the distribution and speciation of bioactive metals within the oceans.