[DLS] Heidi M. Sosik (WHOI)

“Northeast U.S. Shelf Long-Term Ecological Research (NES-LTER): Insights and surprises from high-throughput cytometry and imaging of plankton”

The rapidly changing continental shelf waters of the Northeast U.S. support complex and dynamic ecosystems that depend on planktonic food webs. These systems are challenging to observe at the appropriate spatial, temporal, and taxonomic scales, which span many orders of magnitude and massive biodiversity. Automated cytometry and imaging conducted as part of on-going Northeast U.S. Shelf Long-Term Ecological Research (NES-LTER) provide a powerful way to meet this challenge. Multi-decade NES-LTER observations span an unprecedented range of spatiotemporal scales by leveraging both a nearshore cabled observatory and research vessels surveying across the shelf seasonally. With this vast dataset (billions of individual plankton measured) and AI-enabled analysis, we can now quantify variability across scales and taxa from picocyanobacteria to chain-forming diatoms. This talk will describe case studies that highlight examples when ecological understanding uncovered at local and seasonal scales can be extended to much broader regional and interannual scales. Contrasting examples will highlight when surprising event-scale taxon-specific blooms emerge as decade-level anomalies that are linked to changing environmental conditions including ocean warming and shelf-slope exchange processes.

EAPS Department Lecture Series —

Weekly talks aimed to bring together the entire EAPS community, given by leading thinkers in the areas of geology, geophysics, geobiology, geochemistry, atmospheric science, oceanography, climatology, and planetary science. Runs concurrently with class 12.S501.

Contact: eapsinfo@mit.edu