Marine biodiversity loss, fishing, and climate change

Professor Richard Sanders currently serves as the Director of the Integrated Carbon Observing System (ICOS) Ocean Thematic Centre (OTC) in NORCE (the Norwegian Research Centre), and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (BCCR) in Bergen, Norway. He maintains an active research portfolio including coordinating OceanICU, a grant focused on the role industrial processes play in controlling Ocean C storage. Recently, they have begun to address the challenge of how multiple observing systems can work together to address key ocean science questions and Professor Sanders is leading TRICUSO, an EU grant focused on integrating effort from European Research Infrastructures to quantify the Southern Ocean carbon sink.

Prior to his move to Bergen, Professor Sanders served as Chair of the Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems (OBE) Research Group at the UK National Oceanography Centre. They developed a programme of Biological Carbon Pump research addressing key questions around iron limitation of carbon export in the Southern Ocean, Twilight Zone Carbon cycling and the solubility pump. Core actions included leading the departmental science programme, raising funds, overseeing publications, maintaining financial control over the department, advocating for the department, mentoring and managing & deputising for the Director of Research. Prior to becoming Department Chair, he ran a personal research group which contained one/ two postdocs, one technician, one/ two research fellows and several graduate students.

Professor Sanders has spent over 2 years at sea on NERC vessels including 3 cruises as chief scientist (CROZEX in 2005, and Twilight Zone cruises to the PAP site in 2009 and the Southern Ocean in 2017). Lead PI on NERC Large Grant COMICS (Controls over Ocean Mesopelagic Carbon Storage) and NERC Cross Centre proposal LOCATE (Land Ocean Carbon Transfers).

Professor Poulton is a sea-going marine scientist exploring the quantitative links between plankton diversity and biogeochemical cycles. Professor Poulton uses field observations and experiments to examine how biomineralising plankton influence the cycling of elements essential for marine life, such as carbon, nitrogen, silica, and iron. As a field scientist he has worked across the global ocean, from the tropics to the poles and from the coast to the open ocean, participating in 23 expeditions aboard national and international research vessels. His current research focus is on the production and loss processes associated with marine carbonates, and how they respond to natural and anthropogenic pressures. Professor Poulton did a PhD and postdoc at the University of Southampton, and then a NERC fellowship at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and subsequently became a member of staff at the NOC. In 2017 he left NOC and took up a position in Heriot-Watt’s new Global Research Institute, the Lyell Centre for Earth and Marine Science, a joint venture between NERC, the Scottish Funding Council and Heriot-Watt University. Professor Poulton heads the OceanCANDY (Carbon and nutrient dynamics) research group at Heriot-Watt University. Professor Poulton heads the OceanCANDY (Carbon and nutrient dynamics) research group at Heriot-Watt University, is the co-convenor of the Biogeochemistry Forum for MASTS (Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) and from October will become the chair of the UK SCOR (Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research) panel (he is currently the Vice-Chair).

Professor Stephanie Henson is a Principal Scientist at the National Oceanography Centre and Honorary Professor at the University of Southampton. She leads a large, active research group in global biogeochemical oceanography. Her particular research interests aim at understanding the natural variability and climate change effects on phytoplankton populations, and subsequent impacts on the biological carbon pump. Her research exploits autonomous vehicles, satellite and in situ data, as well as output from biogeochemical models. In 2024, she received the European Geosciences Union’s Fridtjof Nansen medal for “outstanding research into the ocean’s role in the carbon cycle, built on her extraordinary ability to combine diverse observational data with novel biogeochemical models.” She was a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 6th Assessment Report, on the chapter “Carbon and other biogeochemical cycles and feedbacks”.

Emma is an Associate Professor at Imperial College London based in the Department of Life Sciences at Silwood Park. Her expertise lies with carbon cycling by marine life, specifically within the ocean biological carbon pump. She is particularly interested in the role of zooplankton, Antarctic krill and their faeces in sinking carbon to the deep ocean, microbial turnover of carbon and sequestration times. She is also interested in the impacts of fishing on oceanic carbon, and co-chairs an ICES working group/workshop on this subject.

Professor Tagliabue is a Professor at the University of Liverpool and an ocean biogeochemist, interested in how the cycling of resources in the sea affects biological activity and vice-versa. He is particularly interested in trace micronutrients and how they interact together to shape primary production, ecosystem structure and the global carbon cycle. His science links numerical models, at both global and idealised scales, with both fieldwork and synthesis of datasets. He is heavily involved in the international GEOTRACES programme, he is a lead author on the IPCC Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate and is a member of the governing council of the UK Challenger Society for Marine Science. He is also UK Chair for SCOR and sits on the Royal Society Global Environment Research Committee.