Biological Oceanographer

More than half of the living creatures on Earth live in our planet’s oceans. Biological oceanographers study the oceans’ animals, plants, and other life forms. Karen Stamieszkin has studied ocean creatures from tiny plankton to enormous whales. Among the fascinating forms of life she studies are mixotrophs, a type of plankton which can do photosynthesis to create food from sunlight and also eats other forms of life. What roles do different types of plankton play in the oceans’ biological carbon pump? That’s one of the important questions Stamieszkin explores.