Moore Foundation grantee Farooq Azam and his colleagues at Scripps Institution of Oceangraphy at UC San Diego are investigating the ecology of marine microbes, which play a significant role in the ocean’s food chain and carbon cycle.
Azam and his colleagues are investigating how dying phytoplankton--single-celled organisms in the ocean--impact the marine carbon cycle. Phytoplankton "fix" as much CO2 into new cellular organic material as all terrestrial plants combined. When these organisms die, some of their cell debris is released and consumed by marine bacteria.
Together, phytoplankton and bacteria serve critical roles in regulating how much of the planet’s carbon dioxide is stored in the ocean as organic matter and how much is respired back.
Through this Marine Microbiology Initiative grant, Azam's goal is to discover how this recycling is regulated at the microscopic and molecular scales and understand how the ocean stores carbon.
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