News

Congratulations to Stacy Brown, next MS student in the MMG lab to successfully defend her thesis “Microbial Community and Water Quality Assessment of Crassostrea virginica Habitats in Southeast Florida”. Her project was an interesting convergence of her community organizing and participation (Urban Farming Institute, SFAEP) on local water quality (oyster rehabilitation) and using microbiome profiles … Continue reading Stacy Brown defends her thesis on New River microbiomes

For those interested in coral symbiosis, our college was treated to a riveting seminar by Professor Todd LaJeunesse at our bi-ennial HCAS Graduate Research Science Symposium last month. He described the history of Symbiodinium research and his own role in advancing the field. A recording of Dr. LaJeunesse’s riveting talk is available via this link.

Bioinformatics MS student Emma Gellman won first place student talk for her presentation, “Characterization of Potential Marine Microbial Degraders of PHA using Phade Straws” at the recent HCAS Graduate Science Research Symposium at the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Center in February 2025. This was followed by another first place win by Molecular Microbiology and Genomics (MMG) … Continue reading MMG students win presentation awards

Congratulations to Dr. Chelsea Bennice, postdoctoral fellow at Florida Atlantic University and local octopus expert for her new paper –https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2024.1448199/full.. She is well known in our balmy S. Florida region for her dedication and strong efforts to understand the ecology and behavior of these highly intelligent cephalopods (for example see – https://www.changingseas.tv/season-8/804/). It was a … Continue reading New paper on Octopus microbiome paper by Chelsea Bennice et al.

Kudos to Dr. Lauren Krausfeldt, the lab and our many collaborators (from FGCU, USGS, CosmosID), for our first publication from this Army Corp of Engineers project studying microbial communities in Lake Okeechobee!! This effort took much patience, perseverance and a great team effort. Thanks also to the Aquatic Nuisance Species Research Program of ACE for … Continue reading New paper characterizes diverse cyanobacterial communities which possess several genetic tools to deal with bloom conditions in Lake Okeechobee, FL

The whole genomes of mollusk species Tridacna crocea (giant clam), Fragum fragum and F. whitley (heart cockles), and Hippopus hippopus (strawberry clam) have now been fully sequenced through the Aquatic Symbiosis Genome (ASG) project. First authors Ruiqi Li and Jingchun Li from the University of Colorado, Boulder have collaborated with ASG photosymbiosis hub leader, Joe Lopez, multiple … Continue reading Four High Quality Mollusk Genomes published in the Aquatic Symbiosis Genome Project

Professor Lopez is happy to announce that his new book has now been published by Academic Press: Assessments and Conservation of Biological Diversity from Coral Reefs to the Deep Sea: Uncovering Buried Treasures and the Value of the Benthos. The book covers various angles of studying benthic biodiversity: genomics, new technologies, monitoring and public policy. … Continue reading New book on benthic biodiversity has been published