The ERC HOPE Project

The HOPE project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) and is led by Sophie BONNET, Research Director at the French national Research Institute for Sustainable Development. The aim is to study the capacity of (sub)tropical oceans to sequester CO2 biologically. Tropical and subtropical oceans cover ~60% of the world's ocean surface. Until recently, these oceans were considered to be poor CO2 traps, as they are nutrient-poor zones. However, these vast regions harbor a particular type of plankton known as a "diazotroph", which fertilizes the ocean surface with nutrients. These microorganisms boost the marine food chain and CO2 sequestration through an alternative biological carbon pump, the significance of which was highlighted in a recent IRD study. How strong is this alternative carbon pump? Could these marine microorganisms absorb more CO2 than previously thought? And, thus, help mitigate climate change? This is what the HOPE project “How do diazotrophs shape the ocean biological carbon pump?" will explore over the next 4 years, combining techniques at the interface between microbial oceanography, geochemistry and autonomous sensor technology, with the use of the smart profiling buoy.