NOAA PMEL Ocean Molecular Ecology Program

We commit to continuing to conduct scientific research to understand how U.S. West Coast marine ecosystems are responding to ocean acidification and multistressor environmental stressors (hypoxia, ocean warming, etc.). The objective of the Ocean Molecular Ecology group at PMEL is to leverage the advances in molecular biology to scale biological analyses with physical and chemical processes and allow for characterization of marine ecosystems response to climate change manifested through warming, ocean acidification, and hypoxia. We strive to achieve this through our science aimed at characterizing the impacts of warming, ocean acidification, and hypoxia on biological communities and organisms. We support our strategic science goal through efforts to modernize ecosystem assessments through ‘Omics tools, improve ‘Omics tools to advance NOAA mission objectives, and help lead the NOAA ‘Omics strategy. 

We commit to continuing our research to establish long term biomolecular observations of marine biodiversity for tracking changes in marine ecosystem structure and function in response to ocean acidification as well as characterize and measure stress responses from climate change and ocean acidification in key taxa. We will strive to share our results and findings broadly and support international efforts to establish ocean acidification observation best practices, particularly for biological responses to ocean acidification. We further commit to sharing our research, ‘Omics data management standards and guidelines, and ocean observation best practices and leading virtual trainings and workshops to share our knowledge and experiences.

Key to achieving this vision is collaboration and partnership with a diverse array of groups including NOAA and federal agencies as well as with important international, state partners, academic institutions, and non-governmental organizations.

We look forward to working with the OARS community to continue these critical scientific efforts.