The oceans represent the oldest, evolving continuum on Earth with its evolutionary heritage being imprinted in the genes of marine microbes. Microorganisms (i.e., phytoplankton, protists, bacteria, archaea, viruses) account for >95% of all oceanic biomass and drive oceanic biogeochemical cycles, with microbial processes happening in the microscale (<100 μm) but manifesting on mesoscales (~100 km). Yet, we are still faced with fundamental open questions about the diversity, activity, regulation, and evolutionary development of their biochemical and molecular strategies. This is largely due to the fact that microbes are hard to differentiate and study using traditional, ecological observational techniques.
This course examines historical, established, and emerging, cutting-edge efforts to elucidate the nature and impact of microbial genes, proteins, and metabolites, and will link them to ocean ecosystem, physical, and biogeochemical processes through biochemistry, molecular biology, and genome-based approaches with innovative instrumentation and modeling. These efforts have begun to shed novel insight into staggering microbial biodiversity and a range of cellular strategies, including: microbial diversity and activity, the distribution and connectivity of microbial genes, interactive processes, responses to changing environmental conditions, cell communication, diagnostic biomarkers, nutrient transformations, the biological pump, and elemental cycling. (Offered in Fall of even years.)