Congratulations to Dr. Hillary Marchwinski for her successful PhD defense!  Also, HUGE congrats on getting your first dissertation paper published. Dr. Marchwinski studied the impact of restoring marshes through the addition of runnels and the effect on nitrogen cycling. you can read more about her work here, and see a NortheasternGlobalNews story about the work here.

President Trump's crusade against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion members has disrupting consequences for research science in America. Our postdoc Kylea's NSF-funded grant was recently placed in the crosshairs, amongst other research considered "too woke" by those in Washington. Kylea was recently interviewed about this topic and the injustices of being targeted in this way - you can find her in articles here and here.

Our graduate student Mya Darsan has been spotlighted as one of this year's Black Plant Scientists for Black History Month. Mya focuses on fungi in salt marshes, how fungal-plant interactions may be impacted by climate change, and how this may alter salt marsh function. She is currently growing Spartina alterniflora (more commonly known cordgrass) in sterile conditions for hew new research projects. You can learn more about her at her website!

Congratulations to Dr. Johanna L’Heureux for her successful PHD defense! Johanna dissertation’s focused on microbial functions in salt marshes, covering topics running from human fertilizer usage to how microbial traits and resource acquisition strategies change in different inundation and salinity regimes. We wish her all the the best in her new role at AbbVie and will miss her a lot.

The “Not All Nitrogen” (NAN) project had a big September! We measured aboveground biomass of the smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) plants in our long-term field plots and PVC-pipe mesocosms, all of which we have been treating with different forms of nitrogen for two years. And then we collected all the mesocosm plants, pulled the sediment out of the PVC pipes, brought it all back to the lab, and rinsed, sorted, dried, and weighed it all—a herculean task! That is, all before flying down to South Carolina to do it all over again at our sister field site there. It was a lot of work, and a lot of muddy fun. To learn more about the NAN project, click here!

Our graduate student Mya Darsan and postdoc Kylea Garces tabled at this year's Trails & Sails Essex National Heritage events, situated at Plum Island Long Term Ecological Research site where we do the bulk of our research. They shared their work on plant-fungal interactions as part of a broader event themed around, "Salt marshes- Where the living isn't easy!"

Congratulations to Dr. Brian Donnelly for his successful PHD defense in the Bowen Lab! Brian's dissertation studied the impacts of short and long-term temperature and salinity disturbances on the community and function of marsh microbiomes. We wish him the best in his new role as a postdoc with the Mozdzer Lab at Bryn Mawr College.

We are thrilled to announce that we have been funded by the Simons Foundation to study the microbial response to Oscillations in Salt Marsh Environments! This work is built on the foundation of previous research at PIE LTER that suggests hydrologic controls on marsh microbial communities may play a more important role than previously recognized and will be conducted in concert with scientist from MIT, MBL, and beyond. To read more about this funding, please read the associated article.

Our lab’s work was featured in a recent article from the Long Term Ecological Research Network! Mya Darsan and Kylea Garces are spearheading a study on salt marsh endophytic fungi to tease out the functions and roles of these mysterious symbionts. The article explores this work and their partnership on this project. You can find the full story here.

We are thrilled to announce new funding from NSF to support our grant "Not all nitrogen is created equal: Quantifying the effects of different nitrogen forms on marsh persistence". We are gearing up to perform paired marsh organ, field, and greenhouse experiments to examine the differential effects of nitrate and ammonium fertilization on marsh primary production and microbial ecology. This work is in collaboration with Randall Hughes, Anne Giblin, and Jim Morris.

So excited that our PIE LTER proposal was funded for a fifth round!  In PIE V we will be doing all sorts of amazing science looking at sources and fate of organic matter and nutrients in the linked watershed/estuary system, examining how food webs and energy flow change in response to changes in geomorphology, and better understanding how internal feedbacks increase or decrease marsh resilience. My focus will be on plant microbe interactions!

We are underway!  Boardwalks are built, organs are cleaned and ready to go and we are getting ready to start our new NAN project (Not All Nitrogen). Much thanks to our fabulous hosts Jim Morris and Karen Sundberg at University of South Carolina!

Super excited to announce that we have some internal funding from Northeastern and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to start exploring the world of plant and microbe metabolomics. Much more to come as we start to build these new skills!  We already have plants growing in the greenhouse so stay tuned to see what we learn!