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It is graduation season again, and a time of great joy for students and their families. We had a few students in the MMG Lab cross over this year (e.g. Pari Cribbins, Kennedie Cockrell), or at least attend commencement. Another enjoyable aspect of commencements (8 total NSU events) was having visits and hearing inspirational speeches … Continue reading A Special NSU Commencement Season with “Oceans” and Marine Speakers at the Forefront

In 2016 Dr. Lopez was approached by an enterprising Brazilian scientist (Elisamara Sabadini Santos) and her motivated student (Juliana Nascimento) to start a collaboration on characterizing the role of microbiomes in polluted urban habitats. This led to a study of pollution and remediation in heavily industrialized and polluted sediments of Guanabara Bay in Brazil. This … Continue reading New Chapter on Microbial Biomarkers Published in Book, Microbial Alchemy, with Brazilian Collaborators

Interesting call for more visualizations of the ocean depths. I mused about the need and general wish to have round-the-clock monitoring of the deep sea in my book, Assessments and Conservation of Biological Diversity from Coral Reefs to the Deep Sea:Uncovering Buried Treasures and the Value of the Benthos. Photo credit – A predatory Actinostola sea anemone, … Continue reading Seeing is better understanding, especially in the deepest oceans

The Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA) is happy to announce that the official GIGA VI conference website is now open for everyone to view, and answer a quick survey. We want to get a sense of who is interested before the science program gets set. So please fill out and pass the meeting page along … Continue reading The GIGA VI Conference website opens with a questionnaire

We are happy to announce that Pari Cribbins successfully defended her thesis entitled, “eDNA Surveys for the Critically Endangered Caribbean Staghorn Coral, Acropora cervicornis (Lamarck, 1816).” This represents our lab’s first full foray into eukaryotic environemental DNA work. Funded by the Brian Keller Foundation Pari has helped develop eDNA methods for rare species, and chose … Continue reading Masters thesis on coral eDNA study completed by Pari Cribbins

The “Understanding Life: Using Largescale Biodiversity Reference Genomes” conference occurred at the Frederick Sanger Center this past week. The Hinxton countryside and autumn weather provided an optimal setting for the attendees. The Sanger Center hosts were very “wellcoming”, and the genomics topics were wide-ranging, similar to a large evolution meeting, with engaging plenary and early … Continue reading Understanding Life: Using Largescale Biodiversity Reference Genomes Conference wraps up in the UK

PI Lopez was interviewed by the Miami Herald , WMNF radio and NBC Miami to discuss the current bleaching along reefs of the Kristin Jacobs Coral Aquatic Preserve (KJCAP). In conjunction with National Coral Reef Institute (NCRI) colleagues, Ronen Liberman and Nick Jones, a bleaching watch has been in effect ever since the extreme 2023 … Continue reading Octocoral bleaching on local S. Florida reefs is consistent with current global events

Congratulations to MMG student and lab manager Paisley Samuel who has published the bulk of her MS thesis in Frontiers in Water for her first primary authored paper “Diversity fluctuations of the microbial community during annual Microcystis blooms within Lake Okeechobee, FL”. This is a personal milestone and capstone to our earlier Army Corps of Engineers project … Continue reading Bloom-forming cyanobacteria have complex interactions with the underlying heterotrophic communities on Lake Okeechobee