A new initiative, supported by an anonymous $6 million grant, will foster collaborative research on the distinctive microbial communities that are the foundation of the ecosystem in the Sargasso Sea, an area that occupies two-thirds of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Craig Carlson, chair of UC Santa Barbara?s Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology and an adjunct faculty member at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), will serve as director of the project.

Well known for research that links changes in dissolved organic matter to microbial activities in the Sargasso Sea, Carlson will coordinate the team of scientists from BIOS, UCSB, Oregon State University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and The University of Exeter in England.