Project Leader:   
Steven Hallam

Lead Institution:   
University of British Columbia

Research Funding Program:   
SOF 2

The research team seeks to understand the deterioration of our oceans through the examination of microbial communities and the effect these have on oxygen concentrations in the oceans' “dead zones”; a critical element to understanding the impact of climate change on the productivity of BC marine systems.

Dissolved oxygen concentration plays a major role in shaping biotic interactions and nutrient flows within marine ecosystems. Throughout the global ocean, regions of low dissolved oxygen tension (hypoxia) represent a common and expanding feature of the water column, with feedback on productivity, fisheries and cycling of climate active trace gases. Therefore, microbial mediated biological activity associated with these zones directly impacts ocean productivity and global climate balance.

There is increasing evidence that ocean warming trends will decrease dissolved oxygen concentrations within the coastal and interior regions of the Eastern North Pacific, also known as the subarctic Pacific, causing an expansion of the hypoxic boundary layer. This expansion will have a direct effect on British Columbia's coastal ocean floor ecosystems and the productivity of marine fisheries due to habitat loss and changes in nutrient cycling. In order to understand, respond to, or mitigate these transitions it is imperative that studies to monitor and model microbial dynamics in relation to physical and chemical oceanographic parameters be put into place.

In order to paint a more coherent picture of microbial community structure and function associated with subarctic Pacific Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZs), researchers will conduct a series of cultivation-independent molecular surveys along the Line-P transect targeting key metabolic processes mediating nutrient and energy flow within coastal and open ocean OMZs. They will use environmental genomic (e.g. metagenomic) approaches to establish a standard, reference inventory of microbial functional diversity that can be used to quantify and monitor changes in community structure associated with natural or anthropogenic disturbances.

The research team will chart the genomic diversity of indigenous microbial communities found in coastal and open ocean OMZs in the subarctic Pacific Ocean in relation to dissolved gas and nutrient concentrations over a secular time course. In addition to identifying and describing the key microbial players and biochemical pathways contributing to carbon and nitrogen metabolism within the subarctic Pacific Ocean, this work will provide a solid comparative genomic foundation for understanding the biogeochemical processes at work in marine OMZs around the globe.