Primary Convener:
Yubin Raut, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Convener:
Nathan Williams, Department of Biological Sciences–Marine and Environmental Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States
Stephanie Dutkiewicz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Chair:
Yubin Raut, University of Southern California
Nathan Williams, Rochester Institute of Technology

Marine plankton — phytoplankton (primary producers), bacterioplankton (decomposers), and zooplankton (consumers) — and viruses are vital to marine food webs and global biogeochemical cycles. Despite forming Earth’s largest ecosystem, we still lack a holistic view of their biogeography and ecological interactions. Taxonomic and functional patterns of regional to large-scale biogeography are emerging from diverse methodologies such as ecosystem models, molecular tools (e.g., metabarcoding, ‘omics), enumeration and imaging techniques (e.g., flow cytometry, microscopy, IFCB, UVP), and interpretation of remotely sensed ocean color. Operational differences in frameworks and data types poses challenges in uniting these “lenses� to characterize and monitor taxonomic and functional biogeography in a changing ocean. In this session, we seek contributions on the characterization and interpretation of regional and global-scale plankton biogeography based on any methodology. We encourage cross-disciplinary studies, particularly those that apply several “lenses� to provide comprehensive, comparative insights into marine plankton diversity, distribution, and ecological roles.

Index Terms
4815 Ecosystems, structure, dynamics, and modeling
4840 Microbiology and microbial ecology
4855 Phytoplankton
4890 Zooplankton

Neighborhoods:
3. Earth Covering