Biological Oceanography seeks to understand the life histories and population dynamics of marine organisms and how they interact with their environment. It is an interdisciplinary field that integrates biology with physics, chemistry, and geology. Scientists study organisms ranging in size from bacteria and viruses to fishes and whales that may range over entire ocean basins or be restricted to isolated hydrothermal vents or coral reef communities.

The main challenge of biological oceanography is to understand these systems over very large time and space scales and how systems interact. New instrumentation for making measurements over these scales is crucial to this effort. Scientists at the College of Marine Science use the latest in remote sensing technology to study vast regions of the earth’s oceans and have also been developing new technology, such as a genosensor capable of identifying and quantifying harmful algal blooms, for studying these processes on unprecedented scales.

Scientists at the College of Marine Science study the full breadth of Biological Oceanography including microbiology, phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthos, coral reefs, fishes, and marine mammals. They utilize a variety of techniques including SCUBA, acoustics, molecular biology, remote sensing, and mathematical modeling to understand the oceans and their inhabitants.

Images courtesy of Dr. Ernst Peebles.