Cal Poly undergraduate students Sedona Fugitt and Kelly Pi presented their work characterizing phytoplankton communities in Morro Bay Estuary at the Coastal Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) conference in Portland. We were joined by lab alumni Nick Soares (currently the Field Coordinator with the Morro Bay National Estuary Program) and Alex Barth (currently finishing up his PhD at the University of South Carolina).
BCSM Undergraduate Student Research Conference
It was another wonderful Bailey College of Science and Mathematics Undergraduate Student Research Conference. Our students enjoyed sharing their work with the Cal Poly community.
PECO Lab members Jaden Hansen and Eva Kokkino (top), Lucy Nelson (middle), and Sedona Fugitt and Kelly Pi (bottom) share their research posters at the conference.
Phytoplankton monitoring within the Morro Bay estuary
We recently partnered with the Morro Bay National Estuary Program to expand upon our phytoplankton monitoring within the estuary. We will be tracking the abundance of over 200 phytoplankton species from two sites in Morro Bay - one located in the Front Bay near the Coast Guard T-Pier and another located in the Back Bay at Pasadena Point. Check out the recent blog post on our monitoring program.
Light microscopy images of phytoplankton under the microscope during plankton counts. Photo credit: Nicholas Soares
Microbial Image Analysis
Our lab recently published a paper on the open-source program we built for analyzing epifluorescence microscopy images of microorganisms. The Microbial Image Analysis (MiA) program aims to provide flexibility for the selection, identification, and quantification of cells that vary in size and fluorescence intensity (natural or probe-conferred) within natural microbial communities or cultures. The development of the graphical user interfaces (GUIs) was built in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of undergraduate students in Biology, Physics and Computer Science. This work was primarily supported by the Cal Poly Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities Grant Program and the Bill and Linda Frost Fund.
Epifluorescent microscopy image of phytoplankton from the Central Coast of CA. Photo Credit: A. Pasulka
Methodological ‘lenses’ influence the characterization of phytoplankton dynamics in a coastal upwelling ecosystem
Undergraduate students Will Hammond and Laura Lodolo published a paper demonstrating that different methodological approaches, or “lenses”, influence our interpretation of phytoplankton ecology is important. This work highlights the notion that in a natural environment, the discrepancies between methods influence the perceived phytoplankton community composition. This work was supported the Bill and Linda Frost Fund, COAST and the CCE LTER.
