Bigelow Labs researching zooplankton's role in carbon storage

Scientists at Bigelow Labs in East Boothbay are studying how zooplankton help to store carbon in the ocean depths through their daily migration.

"It's the largest migration of life on Earth, and it happens every single day," said Karen Stamieszkin, a biological oceanographer at Bigelow Labs who has been studying zooplankton for years.

Stamieszkin, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory, is heading up the international team of researchers, which was funded last year by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy to develop models to improve estimates of carbon transport by zooplankton.

"The reason we're interested in this as it relates to carbon cycling, or even carbon sequestration, is that when they're at the surface, they're incorporating all this surface-derived or sunl