Sea Lab Goes Global

Much of the research conducted at the DISL concerns the estuarine and near-shore processes right here in our backyard of Mobile Bay. However, many of our research faculty will go far afield to get the answers they need.

A biogeochemist, Dr. Ron Kiene is studying how a gas called dimethylsufide (DMS) that is produced by the plentiful algae of the Southern Ocean is cycled into the atmosphere. Once that gas is in the atmosphere, it attracts particles, creating clouds that may shield the earth from solar radiation or global warming. DMS may hold a key to combating the effects of greenhouse warming. Dr. Kiene has just returned from a month-long journey to Palmer Station, Antarctica. His blog http://biogeochemistrylab.disl.org/
projects.htm was an engaging way to keep everyone informed of his activities, which, besides research, included jumping into freezing waters, keeping his distance from leopard seals and capturing stunning photographs of the scenery.

A little north of Antarctica, Dr. John Valentine was in the Land Down Under, to study the effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s) in Jurien Bay and Rottnest Island. While there he shared his research with scientists at Edith Cowan University and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Perth about his work on the how well of MPA’s restore overfished food webs in the Florida Keys.

Dr. Rich Aronson visited French Polynesia in February to scout out research sites for his studies on climate change and coral reefs. “Reefs are not so different between the Caribbean and the Pacific,” Aronson noted. “They operate under the same ecological rules and face the same dangers in a deteriorating global environment.”

While not exactly an international locale, the offshore waters of Florida were the mapping sites of Dr. Will Schroeder aboard the R/V Seward Johnson as he ventured with a group of scientists to explore deep-sea corals. These deepwater habitats are increasingly at risk as commercial fishing interests move to find richer fishing grounds. “There is a global need to identify potential coral habitats, map their distribution and abundance, and document any potentially valuable fishery species associated with them. Resource managers can use this information to develop conservation policy, and scientists can use it as a foundation for hypothesis-driven ecological and physiological research,” states the website associated with Dr. Schroeder’s survey (http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations
/05deepcorals/welcome.html)