The Stauffer Lab @ UL Lafayette and Schnetzer Lab @ NCSU continue to collaborate with oceanographers from NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) on the GOMECC project! Every 4-5 years, NOAA leads a Gulf of Mexico-wide cruise. We have been lucky to participate in the GOMECC-3 (2017) and GOMECC-4 (2021) cruises and are funded by NOAA OAP to continue this work on the GOMECC-5 expedition in 2025 (NOAA Award # NA24OARX017C0002).
Project Goals
The collaborative ULL-NCSU GOMECC-5 research will accomplish the following objectives across interacting gradients of OA, eutrophication, and hypoxia in the Gulf:
Objective 1) Characterize plankton communities: from bacteria to microplankton, and including harmful algal bloom species (HABs). This will allow us to quantitatively resolve changes in biomass and community composition throughout the Gulf on GOMECC-5. Consistency with past methods and analyses will also allow us to track changes since the GOMECC-3 and -4 cruises, a nearly 10-year dataset.
Objective 2) Quantify community rate measurements of growth and grazing to track carbon flow to higher trophic levels. This objective will use on-deck experiments at select stations on the GOMECC-5 cruise to trace energy and carbon flow from the smallest picoplankton (including heterotrophic bacteria) to micro- and mesozooplankton (i.e., copepods) and, ultimately, higher trophic levels.
Stay tuned for dispatches from the field when the GOMECC-5 sets sail in mid October!
Objective 1) Characterize plankton communities: from bacteria to microplankton, and including harmful algal bloom species (HABs). This will allow us to quantitatively resolve changes in biomass and community composition throughout the Gulf on GOMECC-5. Consistency with past methods and analyses will also allow us to track changes since the GOMECC-3 and -4 cruises, a nearly 10-year dataset.
Objective 2) Quantify community rate measurements of growth and grazing to track carbon flow to higher trophic levels. This objective will use on-deck experiments at select stations on the GOMECC-5 cruise to trace energy and carbon flow from the smallest picoplankton (including heterotrophic bacteria) to micro- and mesozooplankton (i.e., copepods) and, ultimately, higher trophic levels.
Stay tuned for dispatches from the field when the GOMECC-5 sets sail in mid October!
The GOMECC-5 Team
Dr. Beth Stauffer, PI
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Dr. Astrid Schnetzer, PI
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Lucy Roussa
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