Brandy Toner
University of Minnesota, MN·Earth & Environmental Science
Iron is a scarce nutrient in much of the ocean, and its supply controls how much tiny marine algae can grow. Those algae pull carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into organic carbon, part of which sinks to the deep sea.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Chemistry
- Topics
ocean iron cycle
ocean carbon cycle
colloidal iron
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Determine how dissolved organic carbon and iron-binding organic ligands control the 'colloidal shunt', in which tiny suspended iron particles clump with organic carbon and sink, using experiments across seasons and locations.
- Characterize how organic matter associates with newly formed particulate iron, using field samples from the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) and Cape Verde Ocean Observatory regions.
- Measure how these iron–organic particles dissolve in the deep ocean depending on oxygen levels, to test whether the shunt could shift as ocean oxygen declines with climate change.
- Use an ocean biogeochemical model, a computer model of ocean chemistry and biology, to constrain iron–organic matter interactions and estimate how the shunt adds to vertical export of iron and carbon.
More about the research
Iron and organic carbon are therefore tightly linked. Organic matter changes how much iron stays dissolved and usable, and iron in turn shapes ocean biology. Understanding this link matters for predicting how ocean chemistry and carbon storage will respond to a changing climate.
Why it matters
Better knowledge of how iron and carbon move together through the ocean could improve predictions of how ocean biology and carbon storage respond to climate-driven loss of ocean oxygen. If the colloidal shunt proves to be an additional route for carbon to sink, it could refine estimates of how much carbon tropical and subtropical oceans remove from the atmosphere.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Gregory Cutter
Old Dominion University, VA·Earth & Environmental Science
Quantify the total inventory of dissolved organic sulfur (DOS), trace carbon-bound sulfur compounds, across the Pacific Ocean using archived samples from over 100 sites between Alaska and Antarctica.
James Bishop
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Earth & Environmental Science
Engineer and sea-test two robotic Lagrangian Ocean Carbon Observer floats that combine particle flux and particle concentration measurements on missions of months to years, with real-time satellite data relay.
Winifred Johnson
University of North Carolina Wilmington, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify which marine microbial groups produce which osmolytes under nitrogen stress by pairing osmolyte measurements with transcriptomics in laboratory cultures.
The school
University of Minnesota: 88 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 722 research doctorates a year.
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