Big thank you to @mpimarinemicrobio.bsky.social for the science swag! Love the phytoplankton representation!
19.01.2026 13:32
👍 2
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 1
Big thank you to @mpimarinemicrobio.bsky.social for the science swag! Love the phytoplankton representation!
Research globally and act locally. Nice to see @zepernickbn.bsky.social @utkmicrobiology.bsky.social getting attention for collaborations with GLCFWHH researchers to address a local algal bloom. Just published in Harmful Algae.
artsci.utk.edu/meads-quarry...
Excited to see this out - spearheaded by Xuhui Huang who I had the pleasure of mentoring when he was a visiting international scholar in the Wilhelm Lab @tn-marine-micro.bsky.social 🦠
That’s a wrap on the 2025 Lake Victoria Research Expedition! Hopefully not the last!
After a day in the lab processing the cruise samples, we drove to Ogal Beach to collect samples for a good friend and colleague from the 2022 trip who is now conducting their graduate studies in the U.S. It was amazing to see the fishing communities in action!
Overall, I collected samples for metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metabolomics which will *hopefully* shed light on the mechanisms which constrain bloom events…looking forward to digging into the data!
Sites six, seven and eight traveled into the northern central gulf, with the samples collected near Maboko and Ndere Islands. Here we encountered rather clear water…though net tows suggested a variety of filamentous cyanos at site eight!
Throughout these first five sample sites, we were amazed at the sheer abundance of water hyacinths. In 2022, we saw a negligible amount of this problematic aquatic plant - it seems to be returning with a vengeance despite remediation efforts which is concerning…
The fourth and fifth sites were less turbid and situated offshore - with the brown waters replaced by clear blueish green water. Our arms were a bit tired of pushing Sterivex given the volumes we could pass through.
This was routine throughout the first two sites sampled - with the third sample site (situated at the mouth of the Nyando River) full of silt and sediment washed down from the tea plantations
We performed a two-day cruise transect in the eastern basin of the Nyanza Gulf, given prior reports had suggested elevated levels of cyanotoxins. Rather than filters colored green from cyanos, we found our filters full of what we suspect to be dinoflagellates.
In 2022, the #NSF Advanced Studies Institute on #WaterQuality & #HarmfulAlgalBlooms in Lake Victoria, Kenya conducted a three-week survey of the Nyanza Gulf. This week, a subset of the original team went back to follow up on our initial findings - a thread 🦠🇰🇪
Congratulations to Margarita Lankford on a successful thesis - and thank you for inviting me to be on your committee! My first of hopefully many…committees & phytoplankton themed cakes that is 🦠🌊
Sunday sampling trip to the Albemarle Sound & Chowan River of North Carolina. Cyanobacteria were abound, particularly in the Chowan as we were hoping! More to come once we extract all these sterivex in the -80 C…
OK. So you get a motivated postdoc @zepernickbn.bsky.social, who teaches a class of great graduate students, and then some support from the institution and a lot of great labs. Find yourself a nice pink algal bloom in the early spring and....science happens.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
The first contribution from David Niknejad's thesis: a collaboration with UTIA and the Watershed Association of the Tellico Reservoir to start applying molecular tools to the Tellico Reservoir. Thanks to USC's @eric-a-webb.bsky.social for jumping in to help!
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
A great defense of discovery-based science in a time when it is very much needed.
That’s a wrap on the #OceanObservatoriesInitiative #ImagingFlowCytobot Community Focus Group at UNCW! Looking forward to using this data in the lab and the classroom 🌊
Many phytoplankton are affected by climate change via changes in temperature & pH, but to winter diatoms, it appears the issue is light.
🔗rebrand.ly/jsfhiow
@zepernickbn.bsky.social @tn-marine-micro.bsky.social @eechase.bsky.social @utkmicrobiology.bsky.social @unc-emes.bsky.social
Congratulations to @jianhuaguo.bsky.social; @zepernickbn.bsky.social, R. Michael L. McKay, @tn-marine-micro.bsky.social; and Fabian Grein for their outstanding and impactful articles published in The ISME Journal.
View the articles on isme-microbes.org/the-isme-jou...
#MicrobialEcology #microbes
Had an amazing time at #Eco-DAS2025 here in Oahu, Hawai’i! Much scientific scheming was had & new collaborations were made - stay tuned for the pubs to come from the phytoplankton ‘omics team with @akrinos.bsky.social & others!
Can’t go to #ASLO25 without revisiting all things #HABs & #Limnology with old friends
Had a great time at #ASLO25 with @unc-emes.bsky.social & @marchettilab.bsky.social talking all things marine 🌊
Smaller members of the Marchetti Lab presenting massive research findings at the Aquatic Sciences meeting in Charlotte NC @aslo.org. Go Raquel!
Gordon Research Conference in Polar Marine Science 2025 was a success! Had a great time discussing all things related to sea ice & proton-pumping rhodopsins, and made new friends along the way. Looking forward to the next one!
Today we chose to #standupforscience2025 in Raleigh, NC! So proud to be a part of this community! 🧪🥼🔬
A screenshot of a Facebook post from the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
NOAA's #GreatLakes Environmental Research Lab will be taking an "indefinite hiatus" from communications due to staff cuts. GLERL communicates critical weekly updates about the extent of harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie - like the one that left my hometown of Toledo without drinking water in 2014
Monthly Albemarle sampling in 45 mph wind gusts! 🌊 Lots of sand mixed in with the plankton - going to be a challenge to extract. Peep my technician & the truck “lab”.
Happy to see "Lysogen formation governs colonies while lytic infection is more prevalent in single cells of the bloom-forming cyanobacterium, Microcystis" available.. Xuhui and others show a linkage between lifestyle (colonies vs single cells) and infection strategy (lytic vs lysogenic)
