Monthly Archives: March 2007

Publication

Follows, M.J., S. Dutkiewicz, S. Grant and S.W. Chisholm (2007), Emergent biogeography of microbial communities in a model ocean, Science, 315, 1843-1846, doi: 10.1126/science.1138544

 

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Ocean Model Captures Diversity of Underwater Forests

“Simulation condenses 10 years’ evolution into five days of computing”

Denise Brehm, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Read this story at MIT News

Scientists at MIT have created an ocean model so realistic that the virtual forests of diverse microscopic plants they “sowed” have grown in population patterns that precisely mimic their real-world counterparts.

This model of the ocean is the first to reflect the vast diversity of the invisible forests living in our oceans–tiny, single-celled green plants that dominate the ocean and produce half the oxygen we breathe on Earth. And it does so in a way that is consistent with the way real-world ecosystems evolve according to the principles of natural selection. Continue reading Ocean Model Captures Diversity of Underwater Forests

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MIT Darwin Project will model ocean microbes

by Matthew T. Gardner for the Earth System Initiative

Read this story at MIT News

A new program to develop computational models of how marine microbes live and evolve in the global ocean has been launched with a $3.7 million gift from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

The program is important because it will help researchers understand and simulate the relationships between climate change, marine ecosystems and the ocean carbon cycle. Continue reading MIT Darwin Project will model ocean microbes