Seminar on Food Web Base

Marine microbes at work.\Photo courtesy of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Marine microbes, evidently destabilized by climate change or possibly just from binging too much television during the pandemic, have run wild.  They are devouring everything in the ocean, which will soon be nothing but a bacterial soup.  At this point, the microbes will begin oozing up the beach and….

Sorry, got carried away by the occasion.  Even on April Fool’s Day, though, marine microbes have a key role in the ocean food web and the global carbon cycle.  That’s the subject of the next in the Hatfield Marine Science Center’s Research Seminar Series.  Ryan Mueller, of Oregon State University’s Department of Microbiology, will speak on “Partitioning of Phytoplankton Organic Matter by the Marine Microbial Loop” on Thursday, April 1, 3:30 p.m.  The talk is free and open to all.

Dr. Mueller uses inter-disciplinary approaches to study interactions of microorganisms with natural communities. By applying emerging and traditional molecular biology and optics methods, he attempts to define the molecular mechanisms underlying evolutionary and ecological processes occurring within these communities.

His description of his topic:

“Up to half of the organic carbon fixed annually by marine phytoplankton is metabolized by heterotrophic bacteria, which form the base of ocean food webs. We apply advanced stable isotope probing approaches to explore the use and assimilation of distinct pools of organic matter produced by phytoplankton. Findings reveal the resource preferences of marine bacterial populations of the microbial loop and help to better define individual microbial processes that cumulatively contribute to global carbon cycles.”

For the live broadcast of this virtual seminar, to here.

Password: 972587 or call +1-971-247-1195 US Meeting ID: 945 5573 1151