July 28, 2015
Congratulations to Kelsey Ellis who successfully defended her Masters thesis titled ‘The coeffects of vitamin B12 and iron on marine diatoms’. Way to go Kelsey!
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Marchetti Lab
ecophysiology, biogeochemistry and genomics of marine phytoplankton
Kelsey Ellis defends M.Sc. thesis
New publication in ISME J!
May 29, 2015
We have a new publication in ISME Journal that discusses the potential role of diatom proteorhodopsins in helping cope with low iron availability. Co-authors include Dylan Catlett (former UNC undergraduate research scientist), Kelsey Ellis, Brian Hopkinson from UGA and Nicolas Cassar from Duke University.
To read the full article, go here.
Our study was also highlighted on the UNC College of Arts and Sciences webpage and can be found here.
Article in Natural History Magazine
December 8, 2014
Our very own Kelsey Ellis published a piece in the October issue of Natural History magazine about conducting research on diatoms. You can read it here.
p.s. Prospective students, don’t be dissuaded by what Kelsey describes as the “monotony” of phytoplankton research. In fact, what research areas aren’t monotonous at times? And how many of these provide you with the opportunity to join research cruises to far-off, interesting places?
Marchetti Lab recieves NSF award to study polar diatoms
August 1, 2014
We recently received NSF funding to investigate the effects of iron and light limitation within ecologically important polar diatoms isolated from the Southern Ocean. This is part of a collaboration with Dr. Nicolas Cassar’s group at Duke University.
More information about this award can be found here.
Marchetti Lab at Sea in the North Pacific
July 6, 2014
The Marchetti Lab is participating on a research cruise along the Caifornia coast to investigate the ecological importance of iron storage in diatoms aboard the R/V Melville during July 2014 as part of an NSF funded project. Miriam Sutton, a middle school science teacher has joined the Marchetti group to convey her experiences through her classroom website: Science by the Sea. You can follow Miriam’s adventures at sea through her website blog or through her “Science by the Sea” social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Marchetti Lab receives NSF award to study iron storage
August 1, 2013
We recently received NSF funding to investigate the ecological role of iron storage in diatoms. This is a collaborative research project with Dr. Benjamin Twining’s group at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.
More information about this award can be found here.
Marchetti Lab in the news!
December 13, 2012
The research conducted in our lab was featured in the Fall issue of Carolina Scientific, a UNC scientific magazine written, edited and designed by UNC undergraduate students that features the cool science conducted at UNC – Chapel Hill. An article written by Hannah Alchelman, who is completing a minor in Marine Sciences, that highlights our research is on Page 22. We also made the front cover!
New publication in L&O!
October 6, 2012
Our study investigating how variable iron states influences the precipitation of silica in diatoms was published this week in L&O. The main findings of this study are that diatom composition influences the overall community silica precipitation much more than their iron status and that diatoms use different silicic acid transporters when they are iron-limited versus when they are iron replete. Colleen Durkin is the lead author of this study.
To read the full article, go here.
To learn more about Colleen’s research, go here.
Blooms in the Neuse
October 2, 2012
The dinoflagellate cf. Gyrodinium within a water sample collected from the Neuse RIver Estuary
Last week there were numerous harmful algal blooms in the Neuse River Estuary (NRE) associated with some extensive fish kills. Fortunate for us (but not so fortunate for the Menhaden), we sampled a bloom of the dinoflagellate cf. Gyroodinium for metatranscriptomic sequencing as part of a project to evaluate the usefulness in integrating high-throughput sequencing approaches to assess the taxonomy and molecular physiology of eukaryotic phytoplankton in the NRE. This project is funded by the NC Sea Grant and is a collaboration between the Marchetti lab and Hans Paerl’s lab at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City.
New publication in PNAS!
January 19, 2012
Our study titled ” Comparative metatranscriptomics identifies molecular bases for the physiological responses of phytoplankton to varying iron availability” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. To our knowledge this is the first study to implement high-throughput sequencing techniques to assess how marine eukaryotic plankton respond to environmental change.
A link to the PNAS webpage is here.
A PDF of the publication is here.
A PDF of the Author Summary is here
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