University of Oxford
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Sarah Le Besque

sarah le besque
PhD student in Biological Oceanography
Department of Earth Sciences
sarah.lebesque@earth.ox.ac.uk
The remote biomes of the Southern Ocean are highly under-sampled and our understanding of how the community structure and physiology of phytoplankton evolves over the seasonal cycle is poorly known. This weakens our ability to accurately predict how the productivity of the Southern Ocean will respond under climate change. My current research uses in-situ datasets of fluorescence, pigments, and absorption to understand how phytoplankton community structure changes seasonally and latitudinally in the Southern Ocean, particularly under High Nutrient, Low Chlorophyll (HNLC) conditions. My work also includes assessing which environmental factors drive these changes, focusing on nutrient availability, water-column stratification, and light within the surface mixed layer.

Publications

Research area Biogeochemistry Ecosystems Oceans
Research role DPhil Researcher
Research stream Impacts
Division MPLS (Mathematical, Physical & Life Sciences Division)
Department Earth Sciences
Research Groups and Programmes Biological Oceanography