As planning for the Simons Collaboration on Computational Biogeochemical Modeling of Marine Ecosystems (CBIOMES) took off in January 2017, one need quickly became apparent: a database with tools that would allow the project’s participants to sift through the mountains of oceanographic data collected from their own work and by other initiatives. Introducing: The Simons Collaborative Marine Atlas Project (CMAP) — an open database that merges CBIOMES data with publicly available datasets from satellites and sensors and, more recently, all the other oceanographic research initiatives supported by the Simons Foundation.

Continue reading “Sea Map”

Understanding how marine microbes interact with one another and their environment requires a synthesis of empirical measurements, laboratory research, statistics, and modeling. To tackle this challenge, in July 2017 the Simons Foundation’s Life Sciences division launched the Simons Collaboration on Computational Biogeochemical Modeling of Marine Ecosystems (CBIOMES), a five-year project that unites researchers at nine institutions in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. A key objective is to produce a global-scale map showing how the community of marine microbes changes over space and time. In their recently published annual report, the Division celebrates the power of collaboration in charting and understanding the biogeography of the world’s oceans. Continue reading “Charting Uncharted Territory”