Quantitive Understanding of Organisms
Life in the oceans underpins life on the planet, with 3 billion people globally dependent on the ocean for sustenance. As oceans warm, acidify and deoxygenate, the impacts on marine food webs are uncertain due to models built on sparse observations of marine life below the surface. High-resolution data collection delivers a quantitative understanding of the distributions and activities of organisms in the sea, and the biodiversity and resilience of marine ecosystems.
In order to obtain these important datasets, NOC is developing new cutting-edge sensors, samplers, and imaging systems. We create new deployable technology to sample environmental DNA, detect key functional genes and transcripts from microbes involved in biogeochemical cycling and toxin production, implement bio-assays for harmful algae bloom detection, and measure individual phytoplankton cells through in situ cytometry. We also invent custom technologies to understand function such as enzymatic sensors and in situ incubators.
NOC's Marine Technology Capabilities
Today, NOC's abundance of world-leading technology allows society to advance our knowledge of the ocean on a worldwide scale. Their growing capability has transformed our ability to monitor the oceans by enabling autonomous, adaptive and persistent observations from the surface to the deepest depths and furthest reaches of the oceans.