William Kumler Rose Hills
Sign of the times: the lipid signature of a collapsing phytoplankton bloom
Did you know that phytoplankton produce half the world’s breathable oxygen? These enigmatic organisms are a vital part of the marine ecosystem and closely connected to our terrestrial world, but there’s a lot we don’t know about them. This summer, I’ll be looking specifically at phytoplankton blooms – dynamic events in which they reproduce rapidly and overwhelm thousands of square kilometers of ocean – and studying the signals phytoplankton produce when stressed. This project will help us understand how carbon is sequestered in the ocean and the implications for the global carbon cycle.