I'm a marine microbial ecologist who's interested in how microbial communities respond to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. My research is currently divided into these topics:
Marine environments are dynamic habitats that often have harsh conditions (sun exposure, low nutrients, cold/warm temperatures). I'm interested in how microbial communities respond to physical and geochemical stressors. I have led two studies in this topic area, both within the Indian Ocean. In the first study, I examined cross-basin patterns of bacterial community diversity, composition, and structure. In the second study, I examined how eddies alter environmental conditions, influencing nutrient stress, community function, and community diversity.
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Bacteria are the foundation of the marine food web. Human activities and accidents, such as oil spills, release pollutants into the marine environment, disturbing this foundation. I have led two studies that examined the impact of oil spills on bacterial communities. The first, looked at the temporal response to crude oil from Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The second used a ten-year time series of short-read metagenomes to determine the impact of the 2021 Orange County oil spill in southern California on bacterial community composition and function.
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Phages, viruses that infect bacteria, operate as both a top-down and bottom-up control on bacterial communities. Phages also function as a reservoir of genetic diversity that can be transported across biomes by physical transport processes. As storms become more frequent and are intensified due to climate change, I'm particularly interested in determining if phages are transported across biomes during these pulse events and how they impact the ecology and evolution of their bacterial hosts.
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