​Deep within the Earth
oil degrades to tarry mess
and some methane gas
​
Ian Head
Newcastle University

​This relates to a project called Bacchus which examined various aspects of in-reservoir crude oil biodegradation and the formation of heavy oil reservoirs.

Bacteria Sex?
In the Ocean it occurs?
Sure, free DNA
​
Marc Frischer
Skidaway Institute of Oceanography

​During my dissertation studies I explored whether extracellular (free) DNA dissolved in ocean and estuarine waters had any genetic significance for living bacterial communities. The process of taking-up free DNA and incorporating genes into a living genome by bacteria is termed Natural Transformation. By exposing natural bacterial communities to dissolved DNA carrying specific genetic markers I discovered that it was possible for indigenous marine bacteria to incorporate genes from extracellular DNA. Further, I was able to quantify the rates that genes may be transferred via Natural Transformation and discovered that rates were of ecological significance. Additionally, I documented that in environments which naturally concentrate bacteria including in the guts of the detritivores and in filter feeding marine sponges, rates of natural transformation were increased. The dissertation was published in 1994 “Natural Plasmid Transformation in the Marine Environment” and is abstracted in ProQuest (document ID 304129006).

​Microbes in the sea:
Their RNAs are like words
That tell life stories
​
Rachel Poretsky
University of Georgia

​My PhD research involved exploring the functional diversity of
bacteria in marine environments through the direct retrieval and
analysis of microbial gene transcripts (mRNA). I used a combination of
metatranscriptomics (obtaining mRNA profiles from environmental
samples) and whole genome microarrays in order to examine expression
of environmentally relevant functional genes in the environment. This
approach was shown to be one of the most effective ways of discovering
connections between key activities and the organisms that mediate
them.

​Who ate the methane?
and who is eating the oil?
deep into the mud…
​
Beth Orcutt
University of Georgia

​I studied the fascinating microbes living in marine sediments that metabolize methane and other hydrocarbons.

​earthworm symbiont
happy to feed on urine
sweet nephron, sweet home
​
Marie Lund
Aarhus University, Denmark

​I studied the evolution and function of the symbiosis between earthworms and bacteria living in their nephridia (excretory organs).

Deep cold stinky mud
Microbes ate all the sulfate
Time to make methane!
​
Karen Lloyd
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

​light wanes in water
antennae expand and change
green, brown stratify.

Julia Maresca
Pennsylvania State University

I studied the light-harvesting apparatus (antenna) of bacteria that live deep in lakes, and why those that make a brown-colored chlorophyll can live deeper in the water column, where there is less light, than those that make green-colored chlorophylls.

Dig up deep sea mud
Give me your carbon and genes
Who lives and eats there?

Jennifer Biddle
Pennsylvania State University

​My dissertation was on the isotopic and genomic characterization of microbial populations in subseafloor sediments.