Research | Biological Oceanography

Study the ocean through the lens of marine organisms and how they interact with their environment.

Biological oceanographers study the relationship between living organisms in the ocean and their environment. Our faculty and staff have expertise across specific organism groups such as microbes, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish, as well as the ecology of organism groups or ecosystems.

Topics

Oceanographic Analysis, Assays & Techniques
Deep Microbes
Microbial & Planktonic Diversity
Food Web Dynamics
Data Collection & Modeling
Monitoring & Water Quality
Fisheries & Population Dynamics
Science for Coastal Management
Long Term Surveys

Research

Name	Leaders	Themes
Beinart Lab	Roxanne Beinart	The Beinart Lab studies the impact of symbiotic microbes on marine ecosystems.
Collie Lab	Jeremy Collie	Research focuses on the factors affecting the productivity of marine fish populations: harvesting, climatic variability, trophic interactions and other human disturbance.
Marecotec	Andy Davies	Short for marine ecology and technology, our research focuses on the spatial ecology of marine ecosystems, primarily reefs.
Quantitative Microbiology Group	Keisuke Inomura	We develop a quantitative model of microbial cells (Cell Flux Model: CFM) and use it to explain biological, ecological and biogeochemical phenomenon.
Ocean Ecogeochemistry	Kelton Mcmahon	Our research examines the roles that food web architecture play in the function and resilience of marine ecosystems, and how climate change and human-environment interactions alter those relationships.
Lewis Lab	Kris Lewis	The Lewis Lab evaluates how global change and human-caused stressors impact marine ecosystems and the people who live there.
Marine Ecosystems Research Laboratory	Candace Oviatt	MERL has several current research projects focusing on climate change, primary production, and organism metabolism within Narragansett Bay.
Fish Trawl Survey	Jeremy Collie	With over 65 years of data, the GSO Fish Trawl Survey is one of the longest continuous records of fish and invertebrate relative abundance in the world.
The Narragansett Bay Long-Term Plankton Time Series	Tatiana Rynearson	Beginning in 1957, weekly samples have been collected to assess the phytoplankton community and characterize the physical parameters of Narragansett Bay, making it one of the world’s longest-running plankton surveys.
Mouw Aquatic Optics & Remote Sensing Lab	Colleen Mouw	We use visible satellite remote sensing and optics to address questions related to phytoplankton ecology and physiology, primary productivity, carbon cycling, biogeochemistry, and physical drivers of biological variability in marine and freshwater systems.
Rynearson Lab	Tatianna Rynearson	The lab focuses on understanding how plankton diversity is shaped by both ecological and evolutionary processes.
Menden-Deur Lab	Susanne Menden-Deuer	The lab focuses on marine planktonic food web structure and function.