Category

Plankton

Science group

Biodiversity

Our vision is for the restoration of diverse and productive ecosystems that are maintained and managed sustainably.

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Science group

Plankton

Plankton support the majority of marine ecosystems and the human communities that depend on these ecosystems. Through primary production, phytoplankton fix carbon to provide food, and generate oxygen, for higher trophic levels. Plankton both affect our climate and are affected by it. Understanding t...

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  DEAL: DEcentrAlised Learning for automated image analysis and biodiversity monitoring

  DEAL will create an application that allows owners of biological image data to participate in decentralised, collaborative networks, where they can leverage the data and expertise of all participants to obtain better, higher efficacy classification results for their data.
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  CHALKY: Coccolithophore controls on ocean alkalinity

  The CHALKY project aims to determine how coccolithophore calcium carbonate production, recycling and export from the surface ocean affects air-sea CO2 fluxes and the ocean’s carbon sink, and how this may change in a warming ocean.
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  APICS

  The Automated, in situ Plankton Imaging and Classification System (APICS) will radically improve the understanding of how environmental changes are affecting plankton, the microscopic organisms at the foundation of the marine food chain.
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  Quantifying the contribution of sympagic versus pelagic diatoms to Arctic food webs and biogeochemical fluxes (MOSAiC SYM-PEL)

  At the base of the Arctic food web, there are three major primary producers: small flagellates, diatoms living in open water (pelagic) and diatoms growing in sea ice (sympagic). The role of the sea ice diatoms is perceived differently across the research community. For ecologists they are central to...
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  Optical data modelling and assimilation (OPTIMA)

  OPTIMA will advance the capacity of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) to accurately assess the state of the marine environment, by developing the first ever system that assimilates ocean-colour absorption data of plankton functional types into an ecosystem model which incl...
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  Ocean color and biogeochemistry (CBIOMES)

  Earth observation of ocean color remains our only window into the pelagic ecosystem at synoptic scales. It is a rich source of data, and chlorophyll concentration is the principal product, which provides valuable information on how the light from the sun (the energy source for the entire ecosystem) ...

26 February 2026

Fish – the missing ingredient in climate models?

New research led by PML’s Dr Helen Powley reveals that when fish are included in marine ecosystem models, it fundamentally changes predictions of how much carbon the ocean can absorb: highlighting a potential overestimation of the ocean’s climate-buffering capacity. 

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  “Major blind spot” in ocean carbon research could undermine global climate predictions 

  A new international report coordinated by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO highlights a critical gap in understanding how the ocean absorbs and stores carbon – a “blind spot” that could significantly undermine global climate predi...

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  PML scientists to showcase cutting-edge research at Ocean Sciences Meeting 

  From marine carbon dioxide removal to AI-powered biodiversity monitoring, PML scientists will present the latest research addressing some of the most urgent environmental challenges of our time – and explore how the ocean both responds to climate change – an...

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  Test your knowledge: is this plankton real or AI-generated? 

  Can you tell the difference between real plankton images and those generated by artificial intelligence? Researchers are inviting experts and non-experts alike to take part in a ...

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  Scientists reveal our best and worst case scenarios for a warming Antarctica

  New review study on the Antarctic Peninsula, with expert contributions from PML’s Prof. Angus Atkinson MBE, shows that the choices we make in the next decade will determ...