Constructing and Decoding the Molecular Fingerprint Database of Organic Carbon (PI: Prof. Ding HE) Organic carbon is the most reactive carbon pool on earth and undergoes physical and biochemical alteration during its transport along the land-ocean continuum. The composition, sources, biogeochemical cycling, and environmental fate of organic carbon in estuaries and coastal oceans are of interest to marine biogeochemists. Prof. Ding He's group is constructing a molecular fingerprint "big database" by integrating molecular data from different natural environments, including oceans, using ultra-high-resolution mass spectrometry. They aim to assess molecular signatures, extract associations between different environments using big data techniques, predict the fate of organic matter, and drive the development of future case studies. The big data results will provide a basis for future organic matter research directions. Internal Waves as a Driver of Cryptic Diversity in Reef Corals under Threat (PI: Prof. Alex WYATT) In collaboration with researchers from Florida State University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and California State University, Northridge, recent outputs from this work have demonstrated how differences in internal-wave exposure across coral reef depths may support cryptic diversity in the reef coral Pocillopora spp. By creating different thermal environments on reefs, internal waves might promote more resilient reefs, by increasing the diversity of corals and thus their responses to disturbances such as mass bleaching events. 20
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