Research:

     

     Ecological interactions within freshwater communities are the primary foci of my lab group, the Plankton Ecology and Limnology Laboratory (PEL Lab). Our studies have covered a broad range of aquatic organisms, from bacteria to fish, with emphases on lake and reservoir ecosystems. We are particularly interested in understanding how consumers affect community and ecosystem level dynamics through direct and indirect effects on and by planktonic microbes via mechanisms such as selective consumption, alteration of competitive forces, and changes in nutrient cycling dynamics, as well as numerous mechanisms relating to taxonomic and functional dimensionality of planktonic communities. Laboratory and field experimentation play key roles in PEL Lab research, as do genomics, transcriptomics, and phylogenomics, and we typically employ multiple but separate approaches to both basic and applied questions.

     Graduate and undergraduate students working in the PEL lab are free to explore any topic in aquatic ecology and evolutionary biology. Current research in the PEL Lab includes analyses of global patterns in taxonomic and functional diversity within cyanobacterial bloom microbiomes; phylogeny, taxonomy, and ecophysiology of Microcystis spp., analysis of Microcystis toxin diversity and bioaccumulation of microcystins in consumers; and elucidation of spatial and temporal dynamics of HAB-microbiome interactions in southwestern reservoirs, particularly relating to cyanotoxin production, release, and degradation.