Initiative Overview

The world’s oceans are experiencing unprecedented stresses due to human impacts such as increased nutrient runoff, over-fishing, and increased emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing pervasive changes in ocean chemistry and temperature. The scientific community needs the knowledge and tools to predict how these changes will affect critical ocean ecosystems upon which society relies for many important functions. The long-term goal of MMI is to enable a comprehensive understanding of marine microbial communities, including their genetic diversity, composition, and functions; their ecological role in the oceans; and their contribution to ocean health and productivity.  

Since it was launched in 2004, MMI has transformed the field of microbial oceanography by investing in the application of emerging DNA sequencing and sensor technologies and computational modeling approaches to reveal the immense diversity and critical activities of microorganisms in the ocean. MMI is now tackling another great need identified by the scientific community as both a challenge and an opportunity: to uncover the principles that govern the interactions among microbes (who interacts with whom, how, when, where, and the consequences thereof) and that influence microbially mediated nutrient flow in the marine environment (who consumes and excretes what, where, how much, when, and the consequences thereof).  

MMI will achieve these goals by enabling breaking barriers in the field and catalyzing new science through conceptual breakthroughs and advances in technology. MMI seeks to overcome interdisciplinary barriers that currently hinder scientists from identifying and quantifying nutrient pools in the in the ocean, from deciphering the genetic and biochemical bases of microbial metabolism, and from understanding how microbes interact with one another. MMI supports research that identifies and fills gaps in the development of experimental model systems required to investigate archetypal microbial interactions, and the development of key technologies, methods, computational modeling techniques and theory needed to advance our understanding of microbial interactions and the mediation of biogeochemical cycles. The Initiative targets crosscutting needs, such as bioinformatics, investigation of microbial processes at small time and space scales, and developing microbial probes and sensors to further transform the field and enable new pathways of inquiry.  

To achieve high scientific impact though these strategies, MMI employs four grantmaking approaches: 

A) Single Investigator awards (MMI Investigator portfolio) that support individual current and emerging leaders in the field; 

B) Multi-disciplinary Team Research Projects that support collaborations to address interdisciplinary challenges; 

C) Community Resource Projects that fund development of tools and infrastructure of broad utility to the entire research community; and 

D) Instrumentation and Technology Development grants that advance the community’s capabilities through development of novel technology.