Bio-GO-SHIP Recognized with 2024 National Oceanographic Partnership Program's Excellence in Partnering Award

May 13, 2025

An international initiative led in part by the Northern Gulf Institute's Luke Thompson is being recognized for its innovative collaborations and contributions to ocean science.

The National Oceanographic Partnership Program has awarded the Piloting Biological Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations Program (Bio-GO-SHIP) project the 2024 Excellence in Partnering Award. The project builds on the long-running GO-SHIP initiative by implementing high-quality sampling techniques to quantify plankton diversity, abundance and chemical composition across the world's oceans and across decades of time.

Thompson, an associate research professor with NGI, serves as co-principal investigator on the project. He said collaboration is critical to the success of the program, which has broadened understanding of the role of plankton in global biogeochemistry.

"Bio-GO-SHIP's success is attributed to its strong partnerships with leading organizations, including the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Science Foundation (NSF), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)," Thompson said. "These collaborations have enabled Bio-GO-SHIP to advance our understanding of marine ecosystems and their responses to environmental changes."

In addition to Thompson, the U.S. Bio-GO-SHIP leadership team includes researchers from the University of California Irvine, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Oregon State University and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Government agencies in the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia have also contributed to the project.

Among its accomplishments since first being funded in 2021, Bio-GO-SHIP has established systematic oceanic patterns in plankton diversity, activity, and function by collecting environmental DNA and RNA (trace genetic material left by plankton and other marine organisms) on GO-SHIP transects in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. The team has integrated in situ bio-optical and pigment measurements with satellite data for remote sensing calibration and validation.

The NOPP's Excellence in Partnering Award is given annually to the NOPP project that best exemplifies the organization's objective of developing a successful network of partnerships to advance ocean sciences.

"Collaboration among different universities, state governments and federal agencies helps Northern Gulf Institute researchers better understand our oceans and coastal ecosystems, improve forecasts, and enhance the data needed by stakeholders to drive decisions," said Robert Moorhead, NGI Executive Director. "Dr. Thompson's work on the Bio-GO-SHIP initiative is a great example of the impact our scientists can make when working with our outstanding network of collaborators."

For more on Bio-GO-SHIP, visit www.biogoship.org.