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Making unexpected microbial diversity and biogeochemistry expected and predictable in a changing environment
Making unexpected microbial diversity and biogeochemistry expected and predictable in a changing environment
- Dynamic feedback between microbial diversity and biogeochemistry in a changing ocean
Spatial and temporal heterogeneity in nutrient availability is key to explaining observed microbial diversity and biogeochemical processes (Sun et al. 2024a)
Modeled distribution of oxygen and nitrite in a dynamic ocean (Sun et al., 2025a)
2. Interactive impacts of non-substitutable resources on microbial coexistence and metabolism
2. Interactive impacts of non-substitutable resources on microbial coexistence and metabolism
Using synthetic ecology experiments to investigate microbial coexistence (Sun and Sanchez 2023; Sun et al., 2024b)
Changes in microbial community composition and function governed by non-substitutable resources (Sun et al., 2025b)
3. Microbial strategies and kinetics of their metabolic processes in Oceans, Estuaries, and Rivers
3. Microbial strategies and kinetics of their metabolic processes in Oceans, Estuaries, and Rivers
Different strategies of marine nitrite-oxidizing bacteria and their nitrite oxidation kinetics revealed by stable isotope tracer incubation experiments, genome-resolved metagenomics, and mechanistic models (Sun et al., 2017a; Sun et al., 2019; Sun et al., 2021a; Mdutyana et al., 2022; Sun et al., 2023; Fortin et al., 2024; Buchanan et al., 2025)
Nitrous oxide cycling microbes in marine oxygen minimum zones and estuaries (Sun et al., 2017b; Ji et al., 2018; Frey et al., 2020; Bourbonnais et al., 2021; Sun et al. 2021b; Tang et al., 2022a, b; Frey et al., 2023; Kelly et al., 2024)
Current lab equipment
Photos credit to Elizabeth Wallace
Past experiments
Getting to know microbes:
DNA and RNA on filters collected from the Pacific ocean
DNA and RNA extraction
Enriching microbes with a bioreactor in Prof. Sebastian Lücker's lab at Radboud University)
Monitoring nutrients in the bioreactor
Counting colonies
Gene amplification with PCR
DNA purification from a gel
Enrichment cultures from different temperatures
Exploring biogeochemical cycles:
Media for denitrifiers
pH adjustment for samples
Replacing air with helium, one important step in the "denitrifier method" procedure
Running mass spectrometer
One of the 4,000 samples fromEastern Tropical North Pacific
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