National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
United States Department of Commerce
Deck of the RV Storm Petrel before the deployment of an automonous eDNA sampler in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
Macroinvertebrate specimen in jars on the lab counter
NOAA Oscar Dyson departing from Unalaska, Alaska
Underwater view of a kelp forest
Sunflower star on the ocean floor off California

PMEL's Ocean Molecular Ecology (OME) program uses 'Omics tools to tackle global ocean issues. We help lead the implementation of the NOAA 'Omics strategy and the National Aquatic eDNA Strategy to advance NOAA's mission of science and stewardship. We seek to leverage advances in molecular biology to scale biological analyses with physical and chemical processes. Our science aims to characterize the impacts of warming, ocean acidification, and hypoxia on marine life. This allows for characterization of marine ecosystems as they respond to a changing climate.

OME work directly supports NOAA's core missions in numerous ways

  • Understand and predict Earth systems by characterizing climate impacts on marine biodiversity.
  • Develop technology to improve NOAA science, service, and stewardship by advancing 'Omics approaches.
  • Transition results so they are useful to society - we do this by creating open access data dissemination, bioinformatic software, and genetic resources.
  • Provide stewardship and maintain sustainability of the Nation's living marine resources, their habitats, interactions, and ecosystems by generating critical biodiversity information that is foundational for climate resilient ecosystem based fisheries management.

NOAA 'Omics Website
PMEL Ocean Molecular Ecology Technical Portal
NOAA 'Omics Technical Portal

What's Happening

Brookelynn standing in front of a projector presenting her final presentation

Brookelynn presenting at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) Summer Intern Symposium. Credit: Emily Bryan
September 14, 2026

Hi, I’m Brookelynn Gotschall, and this summer I had the opportunity to join NOAA PMEL’s Ocean Molecular Ecology Group as an undergraduate research intern under the NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship. My primary project focused on the urgent environmental challenge of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). As ocean temperatures rise, some microscopic algae known as phytoplankton rapidly multiply, causing blooms that release harmful toxins or physically harm animals and humans, making them HAB species. One such organism, Alexandrium catenella, produces lethal toxins responsible for paralytic shellfish poisoning, which can cause symptoms ranging from dizziness and vomiting to respiratory failure in humans. 

To better understand where these toxic blooms might strike next, I analyzed a... more

What's Happening Archive