Always a great time tagging along on the ModMon to sample the Neuse River Estuary - this time collecting pilot samples with incoming graduate student Brynn! #Fieldwork #NC #Estuary

Incredibly excited to work on this #meta’omics time series of the Albemarle Pamlico estuarine continuum with JGI and collaborators Hans Paerl, Nathan Hall, Ryan Paerl & @tolarchaeota.bsky.social! Stay tuned as we dig into algal-microbial interactions! 🦠 #algae #microbes

Joint Genome Institute@jgi.doe.gov · 2mo ago

From our FY26 New Investigators: @zepernickbn.bsky.social will use DNA, RNA and metabolite profiles to connect environmental change to microbial partnerships. @tolarchaeota.bsky.social @uncw-cms.bsky.social More: jgi.doe.gov/user-science/science-stories/jgi-announces-2026-new-investigator-portfolio

It was an honor to receive the Daylight Award in Research recently with @tn-marine-micro.bsky.social and Mike McKay. Daylight is the driving currency of life on Earth. Sincere thanks to the Daylight Academy - check out the write-up below if you're wanting to learn more! uncw.edu/news/academi...

The Horizon Scan for Harmful Cyanobacteria is online at TREE. A global collective of experts charted a 5 year plan to combat toxic blooms. Understanding strains, metabolism, microbiomes, nutrients and predators are all part of the story. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Scanning the horizon for harmful cyanobacterial blooms

Harmful cyanobacterial blooms are increasing worldwide, threatening freshwater ecosystems, animal health, and human well-being. To guide research need…

sciencedirect.com

@laurenhart.bsky.social's terrific PhD research is out! @freep.com has a good story on it (with links to the papers): www.freep.com/story/news/e... great work Lauren 👏 - the product of many collaborations at @ciglrum.bsky.social, NOAA, USGS, + the Great Lakes Center for Freshwaters & Human Health

There's more harmful stuff in Lake Erie algae than previously thought

Better understanding the potentially toxic components of a harmful algal bloom might prepare water managers to protect the public, researchers said.

freep.com

An unapologetically angry post about what’s being done to US science:

The Current Crisis: What's Happening to Science in America

science.org

Excited for this award with @zepernickbn.bsky.social and Professor McKay @uwindsor.bsky.social. Rewarding research published with @isme-microbes.bsky.social and more clearly explained in @theconversation.com. www.uwindsor.ca/news/2026-05... doi.org/10.1093/isme... doi.org/10.64628/AAI...

As Great Lakes lose ice, a UWindsor researcher makes the consequences visible — and wins an international prize for it

<p><em>By Sara Elliott </em></p> <p>As climate change strips ice from the Great Lakes, something less visible is also changing: the underwater world of light that microscopic life depends on.  </p> ...

uwindsor.ca

PEPSi lab directed independent studies student Brynn Shelley just completed her first growth curve using an estuarine dinoflagellate she isolated from North Carolina’s Neuse River. Needless to say - she’s #teamdinolfagellate

Lake Erie was 3.7C but full of diatoms...... A good day sampling with @zepernickbn.bsky.social and Professor McKay

Big thank you to @mpimarinemicrobio.bsky.social for the science swag! Love the phytoplankton representation!

Research globally and act locally. Nice to see @zepernickbn.bsky.social @utkmicrobiology.bsky.social getting attention for collaborations with GLCFWHH researchers to address a local algal bloom. Just published in Harmful Algae. artsci.utk.edu/meads-quarry...

Mead’s Quarry Research Reveals Toxic Algae Drivers - College of Arts and Sciences

UT research into a pink algae bloom that closed the popular swimming area at Ijams Nature Center in 2024 is providing insight into how the organisms thrive.  Researchers from the University of Tenness...

artsci.utk.edu

Excited to see this out - spearheaded by Xuhui Huang who I had the pleasure of mentoring when he was a visiting international scholar in the Wilhelm Lab @tn-marine-micro.bsky.social 🦠

Wilhelm Lab at the University of Tennessee@tn-marine-micro.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Taihu metatranscriptomes reveal Microcystis colonies have "Black Queen"-like community dynamics and favor lysogeny, while single cells face more lytic pressure. From @utkmicrobiology.bsky.social with Xuhui Huang, @eechase.bsky.social, @zepernickbn.bsky.social and others. doi.org/10.1093/isme...

In 2022, the #NSF Advanced Studies Institute on #WaterQuality & #HarmfulAlgalBlooms in Lake Victoria, Kenya conducted a three-week survey of the Nyanza Gulf. This week, a subset of the original team went back to follow up on our initial findings - a thread 🦠🇰🇪

Congratulations to Margarita Lankford on a successful thesis - and thank you for inviting me to be on your committee! My first of hopefully many…committees & phytoplankton themed cakes that is 🦠🌊

Sunday sampling trip to the Albemarle Sound & Chowan River of North Carolina. Cyanobacteria were abound, particularly in the Chowan as we were hoping! More to come once we extract all these sterivex in the -80 C…

OK. So you get a motivated postdoc @zepernickbn.bsky.social, who teaches a class of great graduate students, and then some support from the institution and a lot of great labs. Find yourself a nice pink algal bloom in the early spring and....science happens. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The ornithine-arginine cycle supported a toxic, metalimnic Planktothrix rubescens bloom

Planktothrix rubescens is distinct from other cyanobacterial harmful algal bloom (cHAB) genera: the crimson-red cHAB thrives in the cold, low-light, nutrient-limited metalimnion. Studies have attribut...

biorxiv.org

The first contribution from David Niknejad's thesis: a collaboration with UTIA and the Watershed Association of the Tellico Reservoir to start applying molecular tools to the Tellico Reservoir. Thanks to USC's @eric-a-webb.bsky.social for jumping in to help! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Metagenome-assembled genome of Synechococcus sp. “Tanasi” from the Tellico Reservoir, Tennessee, USA | Microbiology Resource Announcements

Picocyanobacteria, especially members of the Synechococcus collective (1), contribute to primary productivity, food webs, and biogeochemical cycles of fresh and marine waters worldwide (2). The Synech...

journals.asm.org

A great defense of discovery-based science in a time when it is very much needed.

“Why Are We Funding This?”

Long-standing myths about “silly science” have contributed to the reckless slashing of government-supported research.

americanscientist.org

That’s a wrap on the #OceanObservatoriesInitiative #ImagingFlowCytobot Community Focus Group at UNCW! Looking forward to using this data in the lab and the classroom 🌊

Many phytoplankton are affected by climate change via changes in temperature & pH, but to winter diatoms, it appears the issue is light. 🔗rebrand.ly/jsfhiow @zepernickbn.bsky.social @tn-marine-micro.bsky.social @eechase.bsky.social @utkmicrobiology.bsky.social @unc-emes.bsky.social

Congratulations to @jianhuaguo.bsky.social; @zepernickbn.bsky.social, R. Michael L. McKay, @tn-marine-micro.bsky.social; and Fabian Grein for their outstanding and impactful articles published in The ISME Journal. View the articles on isme-microbes.org/the-isme-jou... #MicrobialEcology #microbes

Had an amazing time at #Eco-DAS2025 here in Oahu, Hawai’i! Much scientific scheming was had & new collaborations were made - stay tuned for the pubs to come from the phytoplankton ‘omics team with @akrinos.bsky.social & others!

Can’t go to #ASLO25 without revisiting all things #HABs & #Limnology with old friends

Had a great time at #ASLO25 with @unc-emes.bsky.social & @marchettilab.bsky.social talking all things marine 🌊

Smaller members of the Marchetti Lab presenting massive research findings at the Aquatic Sciences meeting in Charlotte NC @aslo.org. Go Raquel!

Gordon Research Conference in Polar Marine Science 2025 was a success! Had a great time discussing all things related to sea ice & proton-pumping rhodopsins, and made new friends along the way. Looking forward to the next one!

Today we chose to #standupforscience2025 in Raleigh, NC! So proud to be a part of this community! 🧪🥼🔬

NOAA's #GreatLakes Environmental Research Lab will be taking an "indefinite hiatus" from communications due to staff cuts. GLERL communicates critical weekly updates about the extent of harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie - like the one that left my hometown of Toledo without drinking water in 2014

Monthly Albemarle sampling in 45 mph wind gusts! 🌊 Lots of sand mixed in with the plankton - going to be a challenge to extract. Peep my technician & the truck “lab”.

Happy to see "Lysogen formation governs colonies while lytic infection is more prevalent in single cells of the bloom-forming cyanobacterium, Microcystis" available.. Xuhui and others show a linkage between lifestyle (colonies vs single cells) and infection strategy (lytic vs lysogenic)

Lysogen formation governs colonies while lytic infection is more prevalent in single cells of the bloom-forming cyanobacterium, Microcystis

While the bloom-forming cyanobacterium Microcystis can exist as free-living single cells or within dense mucilaginous colonies, the drivers and consequences of colony formation remain unclear. Here, w...

biorxiv.org