Welcome to OceanWiki
Main Page
Origin Story & Mission
Marine biogeochemistry needs a shared vocabulary between experimentalists and modelers for cross-disciplinary work to advance the field. Yet, to integrate disciplines successfully, researchers need to be vocal about discrepancy and uncertainty, and realize caveats of how values are determined. This community-driven collection of biogeochemical output began at the BioGeoScapes modelling workshop and the following PRiMO session at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in September 2025. To highlight cross-discipline implications like What data was particularly helpful to inform a model? or How can a model help constrain experimental parameters?, the idea arose to create a Wiki that provided a central repository for basic information related to interdisciplinary biogeochemistry science. This emerged as a way to address needs that have arisen in conversations specifically:
- defining key terms used across disciplines
- explain types of data generated by different methods, assumptions, and potential biases
- describe different types of models, required data inputs, computational demand, and limitations
Content
OceanWiki is an encyclopedia of marine biogeochemistry, and consists of three components:
A dictionary with definitions from both experimentalists, observationalists, and modelers.
Types of data from experimental observations and how they are obtained, grouped by the process they investigate.
Primary Production
Photoautotrophy | Nitrogen Fixation | Phytoplankton C/N-Based Growth Rates | Chemoautotrophy
Secondary Production
Enzyme Activity | Growth Rate | Respiration
Nutrient Fluxes
Nitrogen | Phosphorous | Sulfur | Trace Metals | Biomineralization
Interactions
Grazing | Mixotrophy | Viruses | Allelopathy | Life cycles
Types of models explained grouped by the scales they function at.
Flux Balance Analysis | Proteome Allocation Models | Particle Simulation | Bio Particle Simulation
Community Flux Balance Analysis | GENOME
CMIP | MARBL | Darwin | AWESOME-OCIM | PISCES
These pages contain definitions, limitations, context, and references.
They are populated by researchers, naming responsible authors for context and credit.
Teaching material
This was a suggestion from the BioGeoScapes leadership and we are working on incorporating it.