ToshiAquaEcoLab

We attended the conference and five student posters were presented.  All of them were excellent! Jacob received the 3rd place prize in the undergraduate poster competition. 

Our snake eDNA paper was featured in Science Magazine.  "Tracking the elusive Burmese python—with DNA clues in the dirt"  posted in: Plants & Animals doi:10.1126/science.aat6441 by Erica Tennenhouse. 

Cristina, Luka, Megan and I attended the conference in April 23-26, 2018, Coral Springs, Florida.  We had a great time there and met many scientists and students.  Blair foundation (Vester), Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education at FGCU, Professional development grant at FGCU and NSF supported our research and travel.   

Luka attended and presented his data at ONE HEALTH / ONE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT CONFERENCE 2017, Montego Bay, Jamaica. He talked about FGCU campus pond water research.  Good work, Luka! 

Natalie was invited as a guest speaker at Southwest Florida Marine Aquarium Society Reef Conference Banquet on Friday evening on Oct 21, 2017. She talked about her Asterina starfish story. Well done, Natalie!

Ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) play a key role in marine nitrogen cycle and are known as a major contributor to N2O release and plausible indirect source of methane in the upper ocean. Thus, their sensitivity to ocean acidification and other physicochemical changes associated with climate change has global significance.
Although marine nitrification driven by AOA were reported as highly sensitive to reduction in ocean pH, our new paper published in PNAS (July 11, 2014) show that some coastal marine AOA can remain active with increasing acidification of the oceans.

I sincerely thank Aaron Sipos to his great contribution in our laboratory.  He deeply loves marine life and aquarium science.  He has been engaged in the study of nitrifying microorganisms in my lab. His passion, great ideas and thoughts are nicely topped on his efforts.  He continues to work in his senior project (summer B, 2014) and is trying to wrap up his methylene blue toxicity experiments.  Now he challenges writing a paper about methylene blue toxicity to nitrifying archaea and bacteria.  I believe his finding will be a great benefit for many aquarists in the future.  Now his lab work reached 100 hours.  Congratulations!

His work was published in 2016.

Congratulations to graduate student Juan Garcia for earning The FASEB MARC Travel Award to attend  the 114th American Society for Microbiology General Meeting on May 17-20 2014, Boston, MA for his presentation entitled "Influence of Freshwater Discharge in the Microbial Degradation Processes of Dissolved Organic Nitrogen in a Subtropical Estuary", Juan Garcia as a lead presenter.

The FASEB MARC Program provides funding for travel awards to encourage and support the participation of underrepresented students and postdoctoral fellows at scientific meetings and conferences, and the participation of underrepresented PhD/graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members in leadership development and grantsmanship training seminar programs.  See more at: http://www.faseb.org/MARC-and-Professional-Development/Travel-Awards.aspx#sthash.3juNGz9E.dpuf

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Later his research was published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Dr. Eric S. Menges, Director of Plant Ecology Program and Senior Research Biologist at Archbold Biological Station visited us. He attended a Florida native plant conference at FGCU and stopped by AB7 building on May 15, 2014.  He is a well-known plant ecologist who studies Florida scrub and wild fire-plant interactions.  Florida schrub is a unique plant community characterized by the dominance of shrubs and occurs in small patches scattered across the state. It can be found on elevated dunes along the Florida coastline or inland part along sandy ridges of the peninsula. Florida Scrub serves as a valuable home to dozens of plant and animal species that have adapted to life in the scrub and found nowhere else.  It was a great opportunity to know about this unique and interesting ecosystem. 

Congratulations to graduate student Juan Garcia for earning the 2nd place graduate oral presentation award at the Annual Meeting of the Florida Branch of the American Society for Microbiology in Islamorada, FL for his talk about genome sequencing analysis of Nitrosospira lacus, a new ammonia-oxidizing bacterium! (April 12-14, 2013)

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Later presented results were published in two papers.

The April Daily News section of the National Geographic picked up our research and included it in its series on the Gulf Oil Spill (published April 19, 2012).

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