Data Types

Oceanographers measuring bulk rates of carbon fixation and respiration as well as elemental composition, i.e. how much particulate carbon, nitrogen, or phosphorus is present in a given volume of water, provide foundational information about ocean biogeochemical cycles. These bulk measurements can be coupled with targeted methods to further assess rates of transformation. More recently, new tools in analytical chemistry, molecular microbiology, and bioinformatics are enhancing our ability to integrate process-based mechanisms and biomass estimates of functional groups of interest into the study of ocean biogeochemistry.
In addition, advances in sequencing and mass spectrometry technologies over the last decades have accelerated the study of microbial communities. These high-throughput, data-rich approaches enable assessment of community taxonomic and functional composition, metabolic potential and diversity, and phylogeny and evolutionary history across the global oceans.

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Photoautotrophy

Laboratory-based

• ¹⁴Carbon uptake (NPP)
• ¹⁸O-labelled water (GOP)
• Winkler light-dark dissolved O₂ bottle
• Phytoplankton carbon biomass (Cphyto) x growth rate (µ)
• ¹³Carbon uptake
• Gross Primary Production (GPP) - triple oxygen
• Net community production (NCP)

In situ measurements

• Net community production (NCP) - O₂/Ar
• Continuous dissolved oxygen (DO) optodes

Global optics-based

• Single Turnover Chlorophyll Fluorescence
• Remote Sensing NPP
• BGC-Argo NPP

Omics-based

• RT-qPCR/ddPCR
• rcbL gene expression/quant
• psbA
• Rubisco protein
• PSII/PSI quantification