scientists examine the biomolecules dissolved in the ocean
and read them like a history book of the sea.
Water does not forget, says Prof. Boris Koch, a chemist at
the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz
Association. Irrespective of what happens in the sea: whether the sun shines,
algae bloom or a school of dolphins swims through a marine area – everything
and everyone leaves biomolecular tracks.
With the help of a combination of new techniques, Boris Koch and
colleagues can now identify and retrace some of these. In a special volume of the open access
journal Biogeosciences, these scientists report on how these analyses work and
which events in the sea have so far been uncovered by researchers.