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Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland

Biogeochemistry Forum

Welcome to the MASTS Marine Biogeochemistry Forum

This Forum provides a platform for knowledge exchange (information, education, networking), enabling the MASTS community to collaborate on Marine Biogeochemistry Research. The Forum ensures marine biogeochemists play a key role in shaping the future Scottish marine environment.

Sand and seashells
Forum News & Resources
Background & Objectives

The Marine Biogeochemistry Forum (MBF) strives to ensure marine biogeochemists play a key role in shaping the future Scottish marine environment. Scottish marine biogeochemists are respected world-wide, and the MBF has facilitated consolidation of the Scottish marine biogeochemistry community by developing a united research strategy, with scientific excellence at its core. This is particularly important since a better understanding of biogeochemical processes and their sensitivity is required to evaluate their response to natural and anthropogenic change in the 21st Century and beyond.

Biogeochemistry is a key component of large national and international funding schemes and MBF research primarily addresses three environmental grand challenges: climate change and carbon cycling (including blue carbon and ocean acidification), open ocean biogeochemistry, and marine biomineralisation. In particular, the MBF has been pivotal in the formation of new initiatives including the role of nature-based solutions in mitigating climate change (e.g. The Scottish Blue Carbon Forum and industry-driven habitat restoration).
Effective biogeochemistry frequently requires the parallel measurement of multiple processes, often over long-time scales via monitoring infrastructure. The critical mass of scientists and infrastructure within MASTS enables MBF to unify those resources, conducting high profile and high impact research of benefit to both society and science.

Ocean wave

The Forum promotes international and national biogeochemistry accessibility, ensuring both international and within-MASTS interaction and impact, and facilitating common goals. Integration and communication are achieved using cross-cutting research agendas, themed workshops, meetings and social media.

  • Consolidate a critical mass of biogeochemists within MASTS, providing an opportunity to conduct key and high-profile impactful research
  • Promote and facilitate biogeochemistry accessibility across the MASTS Research Themes and Forums, ensuring within-MASTS interaction and impact, and facilitating common goals
  • Enable impact and knowledge exchange of MASTS MBF outputs by directly engaging with a range of stakeholders across the policy, industrial and public sectors
  • Provision of student and researcher support to accelerate biogeochemical advances
Activities

MASTS Annual Science Meeting 2023, Glasgow – Gathering of the “Marine Biogeochemistry” Community

Bird view of ocean waves
Convenors

Alex Poulton
– Heriot-Watt University

Dr | Associate Professor | Biological Oceanography

Interests: Marine Ecology | Global plankton ecology | Aquatic Biogeochemistry | Linkages between diversity, primary production, bio-mineralisation, nutrient recycling

Coastaline with sand dunes and mountains

Robyn Tuerena
– SAMS

Dr | Lecturer in Nutrient Biogeochemistry

Interests: Nutrient and carbon cycling on local to basin scales and their interactions with phytoplankton and marine food webs | Nutrient concentrations, stable isotope techniques, stoichiometric tools

Steering Group

Anna Belcher (Forest Research), Claire Powell (Cefas), David Paterson (MASTS), Hannah Muir (Swansea University), Julie Hope (University of St Andrews), Marta Maria Cecchetto (Heriot-Watt University) and Natalie Hicks (University of Essex).

If you are interested in joining this Steering Group please contact [email protected].

MASTS Resources

We’re working behind the scenes to bring you a suite of useful, and updateable, resources including: 

  • Find an expert
  • Find facilities & equipment
  • MASTS Publications

 

If you would like to be updated when the resources section is live please let us know.