Results from DOMINO laboratory and field studies will help explain how nitrogen availability and the life-styles and stages of various plankton species affect their ability to produce dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen, and what chemical forms these elements take.

A better understanding of the forms and pathways of dissolved organic matter is vitally important. Dissolved organic carbon compounds play an important role in global climate change. Dissolved organic nitrogen is an important nutrient in coastal and open-ocean systems. In heavily developed estuaries like Chesapeake Bay, excess inputs of dissolved nitrogen from fertilizers and car exhaust can nurture algal blooms that shade Bay grasses and deplete oxygen supplies.