Since the opening of its Laboratory in Plymouth in 1888, the Marine Biological Association has earned an international reputation for the broad scope and quality of its research. The research programme is managed by the MBA Council through its Director and its prime aim is to promote individually motivated research into problems of fundamental importance in marine biology. This is achieved by interweaving the work of resident Fellows with that of visiting workers. The programme is constantly evolving and is described annually in the ‘Report of Council’. The wide scope of the Association’s research programme is reflected in the breadth of its funding base. The programme is funded by a grant-in-aid from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), by grants from other Research Councils, awards from Private Trusts (Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust) and from the Royal Society, by grants from industry and through research contracts with the Commission of the European Communities. The well-found laboratory for the research programme is provided by the NERC through an agreement which also resulted in the formation of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in 1988. Our Research programme addresses both fundamental and strategic issues in marine science and is structured around the following themes: a) ecosystems and environmental Change; b) mechanisms underlying biogeochemical and ecological processes.

Climate-driven reductions in dissolved oxygen (DO) of the global ocean interior (ocean deoxygenation) is leading to expansion of permanent oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) that comprise about 7% of ocean volume. Impacts on marine animal distributions and abundance may be particularly significant for high-oxygen-demand top predators, such as warm-bodied tunas and sharks, by reducing habitat volumes as OMZs expand (habitat compression) and concentrating fish further in surface waters where they become more vulnerable to fisheries. But predictions of how exploited oceanic fish actually respond to OMZ expansions are not based on mechanistic understandings, principally because direct measurements of oxygen tolerances and associated metabolic costs have not been determined. OCEAN DEOXYFISH will bring about a step change in understanding of OMZ impacts on oceanic ecology by applying our existing expertise in animal movement studies and by developing new biologging technologies and in situ physiology for measuring oxygen tolerances and metabolism directly in free-living fish. This will enable major unknowns to be addressed concerning how oceanic fish respond physiologically and behaviourally to hypoxia, the role of OMZs in upper-trophic-level ecology, how oceanic fish habitats change with predicted OMZ expansion, and whether this will increase fish vulnerability to fishing gear. We will achieve objectives through linked field, experimental and modelling studies. By focusing on key processes underlying fish responses to DO in situ, new modelling approaches will establish effects of future warming and OMZ shoaling on fish niches and determine how these shift distributions and alter capture risk by fisheries. The project represents a discipline-spanning approach linking physiology to ecology and oceanography, with wide-ranging outcomes for understanding global biotic responses to warming and ocean deoxygenation with direct relevance to sustainable fisheries and species conservation.

Marine planktonic fungi (mycoplankton) have been largely ignored compared to other plankton groups, such as phytoplankton, especially the roles that they fulfil in marine ecosystems. My research has shown that mycoplankton are a major structural and functional component of coastal ecosystems that have been almost completely overlooked. I have shown that mycoplankton are a substantial proportion of plankton biomass and that saprotrophic mycoplankton are active in coastal ecosystems. Mycoplankton are also a major plankton group in the open ocean and dominate on marine snow particles. These studies demonstrate that fungi have potential roles in the marine carbon cycle including the biological carbon pump. The absence of fungi within a general view of the structure and function of the marine carbon cycle, including a lack of mechanistic understanding of saprotroph functional biology and ecology, represent major knowledge gaps in our understanding of marine ecosystems that must urgently be addressed. MYCO-CARB will address these knowledge gaps through an innovative programme of research. Research cruises at established marine observatories will make an unprecedented assessment of active mycoplankton diversity and abundance across a range of ecosystems; from surface coastal waters to the deep open ocean. Innovative approaches, including molecular ecology tools and ecosystem modelling, will establish the impact of fungal saprotrophs on the marine carbon cycle. A culture collection will be developed, informed by the field-based surveys of natural assemblages to produce ecologically-relevant model fungi. Complementary culture-dependent and -independent systems biology methodologies will determine the underpinning biological machinery of saprotrophic marine mycoplankton. Through the MYCO-CARB research programme, I will open the marine fungal ‘black box’, revealing marine mycoplankton functional biology and ecology, and establishing their roles in the marine carbon cycle.

Since the opening of its Laboratory in Plymouth in 1888, the Marine Biological Association has earned an international reputation for the broad scope and quality of its research. The research programme is managed by the MBA Council through its Director and its prime aim is to promote individually motivated research into problems of fundamental importance in marine biology. This is achieved by interweaving the work of resident Fellows with that of visiting workers. The programme is constantly evolving and is described annually in the ‘Report of Council’. The wide scope of the Association’s research programme is reflected in the breadth of its funding base. The programme is funded by a grant-in-aid from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), by grants from other Research Councils, awards from Private Trusts (Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust) and from the Royal Society, by grants from industry and through research contracts with the Commission of the European Communities. The well-found laboratory for the research programme is provided by the NERC through an agreement which also resulted in the formation of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in 1988. Our Research programme addresses both fundamental and strategic issues in marine science and is structured around the following themes: a) ecosystems and environmental Change; b) mechanisms underlying biogeochemical and ecological processes.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.