LSC doctoral student Sara K. Yeo leads a paper recently published in PLOS One, “Coastal Bacterioplankton Community Dynamics in Response to a Natural Disturbance.” The paper is based on her masters research at the University of Hawai’i.
Yeo and her co-authors characterized the moicrobial community in a subtropical embayment using SSU rRNA gene analyses over an 8-month period, which included a storm event. During the storm event, the microbial community composition of sampled locations near the shoreline changed markedly. Complex spatial patterns in both microbial community structure and environmental conditions were related to freshwater runoff and wind convection. Spatial heterogeneity plays an important factor influencing bacterial community dynamics and disturbances, such as storm events, may play a crucial role in maintaining microbial diversity.
This work was supported by the University of Hawai’i Sea Grant and conducted in the Rappé Lab. The study was part of Yeo’s M.S. in Oceanography at the University of Hawai’i. The paper is co-authored with Megan J. Huggett, School of Natural Sciences, Edith Cowan University; Alexander Eiler, Department of Molecular Evolution, Uppsals University; and Michael S. Rappé, Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawai’i. View the full paper at PLOS One here.
Yeo works in the scimep lab under the guidance of LSC Faulty Dominique Brossard and Dietram A. Scheufele. Her research interests include science and political communication, public opinion dynamics, and civic engagement and participation. Her dissertation research will focus on understanding how perceptual filters shape public perceptions of technologies, and engagement with such issues. You can follow Yeo on Twitter at @sarakyeo.