2014 AGU Fall Meeting

December 15 - 19, 2014

In the coming decades, one approach for improving how we measure and quantify the ecological significance of marine organisms (including microbes to macrofauna) and understand their physiological changes as a result of the individual and interactive effects of environmental change, is to pair meta’omics and biogeochemical measurements more succinctly. Traditional metrics for tracking physiological changes in organisms are key to understanding the status of a complex community, however, molecular approaches allow us to derive a more fundamental understanding as to why a particular phenotype is expressed or a specific genotype succeeds. Furthermore, the coupling of these sequence-based datasets (‘omics) with biogeochemical measurements (i.e., uptake rates, biomass quantification, direct visualization, pigment analysis, isotope tracers, etc.), is a powerful means to investigate vital trophic linkages in microbial food webs, understand biological responses to perturbations, and provide insight into successful adaptations and acclimations in the ocean biome. We specifically aim to bring together researchers to share studies which leverage the methodological integration of sequence data sets with biogeochemical measurements. Studies focusing on any trophic level and domain are welcome. Another goal of the session is to pose the question: ‘What take-home message from your study would not have materialized without the integration of molecular and non-molecular methods?’