Markel Gómez Letona works as a postdoctoral researcher for Instituto de Investigacións Mariñas at Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IIM – CSIC). He holds a PhD in oceanography (Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 2023), addressing how prokaryotic communities (bacteria and archaea) and dissolved organic matter relate to each other in upwelling environments, including the influence that the vertical flux of particles has on their connectivity across the water column. He is now involved in OceanICU’s Work Package 4, focusing on Task 4.3, ‘Carbon production and respiration in the interior ocean’. Within Task 4.3, he works estimating and parameterising oxygen utilisation rates in the dark ocean as a means to study respiration, addressing its contribution to shape the marine carbon cycle.