Do Swimming Animals Mix the Ocean?

Discovery Lecture Series
presented by AltaSea and Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

By John O. Dabiri, Stanford

The oceans are teeming with trillions of swimming organisms, from bacteria to blue whales. Current research efforts in biological oceanography often focus on the impact of the marine environment on the organisms within. We ask the opposite question: can organisms in the ocean, especially those that migrate vertically every day and regionally every year, change the physical and/or biogeochemical structure of the water column?