A collaborative project at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences is linking satellite data with microscopic marine life to better understand the changing Gulf of Maine.
Thanks to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) funding and Bigelow seed support, researchers are working to combine ocean color measurements from space with data from seawater samples. This interdisciplinary work marries two of Bigelow Laboratory’s core strengths — satellite oceanography and single-cell genomics — to create models that reveal how microbial communities and ocean conditions are shifting over time.
The project could help scientists reconstruct past microbial communities, understand present biogeochemical changes, and even forecast the ocean’s future — all by connecting data from the vast to the microscopic.
This is a visionary step forward in ocean science, powered by teamwork, curiosity, and a whole lot of computational muscle.
Photo 1: Senior Research Scientist Julia Brown (right) begins to sequence the genetic information of microbial samples (Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute).
Photo 2: NASA satellite imagery shows how the presence of phytoplankton and other organic matter alters the color of seawater in coastal shelf environments like the Gulf of Maine (Credit: NASA PACE).
Photo 3: The Schooner Tara is pictured after completing its epic, multi-year journey across the global ocean, providing scientists with unprecedented data combining measurements on seawater optics and microbes (Credit: Yohann Cordelle).
Photo 4: Senior Research Associate Tim D’Angelo collects water samples during a GNATS research cruise while other scientists on board gather ocean color data (Credit: Catherine Mitchell).
Photo 5: A circle shows the Patagonian Shelf off the coast of Argentina where researchers identified interesting patterns in the potential relationship between ocean color and microbes during a seed project (Credit: NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group).
