Department
Department of Marine Sciences
Organization
University of Connecticut
Email
skoog@uconn.edu

Location

Groton , Connecticut 06340
United States

Science Specialties

biogeochemistry

Current Research

Dissolved organic material (DOM) in the Arctic ocean has the highest concentration in any ocean basin, and is potentially an important factor in supporting the net heterotrophic open ocean in the Arctic. However, this DOM is mostly unknown on the molecular level. As a part of the NSF supported Shelf-Basin Interaction program, our group does molecular level studies of DOM in the Arctic Ocean with the following goals: -determine whether the high DOC concentrations in the Arctic Ocean include a higher concentration of biologically labile components than are found in other oceans. -determine the relative biological lability of DOM from riverine inputs to the Arctic Ocean and compare that to relative lability of DOM formed in situ. -determine which biologically labile compounds in the Arctic have detectable concentrations, in order to carry out flux studies on a molecular level to calculate a reasonable heterotrophic incorporation efficiency for the Arctic Ocean during phase II of the SBI effort.