After many years of concerted investigation, the team and some colleagues now have multiple, convergent lines of evidence to suggest that sea star wasting disease is a sequela of organic matter remineralization (and subsequent hypoxic conditions) in the boundary layer overlying respiratory surfaces. We see this reflected in microbiome trends during wasting (copiotrophs –> anaerobes).… Read More New Preprint on Sea Star Wasting – It’s all about the Boundary Layer

Gideon Mordecai (UBC) and I have recently published a mini-review on marine coronaviruses in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. While not much is known about the true diversity of coronaviruses in marine ecosystems (because they are hugely under-sampled), we can learn about how they may behave in marine habitats through other enveloped, ssRNA viruses.

Originally posted on Microbial Ecology of Sea Star Wasting Disease:
Summer’s wound up for another year, which means the end of a field season. Sea star wasting is, however, only just ramping up. We’ve sadly learned of wasting in several constantly monitored populations of sea stars which had shown a strong recovery since the 2013-2014…

After a highly successful and productive sabbatical in New Zealand (stay tuned for interesting results), we’re back in action investigating sea star wasting in North America. Reports from collaborators and citizen scientists from the west coast indicate that wasting continues at a low(ish) level in sea star populations this boreal spring at some sites, and… Read More New Experiments in Santa Cruz

Nine years ago I participated in a triathlon on Cayuga Lake. At the time, I was a pretty fast swimmer (not anymore I fear…) and came in 4th overall in the swim leg amongst >500 competitors. During the swim in the lake, aside from trying to swim in a straight line, I incidentally ingested quite… Read More New Publication! – this time on Freshwater RNA Viruses.

Any postdocs want to come and work with me? Here’s a great opportunity for funding from the Simons Foundation: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons-postdoctoral-fellowships-in-marine-microbial-ecology/ Broadly, any projects should be focused around microbial ecology – so probably NOT projects related to disease pathobiology. Ideas for viable projects include: Virus-zooplankton interactions; Viral-biofoulant (e.g. barnacles, tunicates, etc) interactions; Microbiology of metazoan diseases;… Read More Postdoc Fellowship!

Four years ago I published a paper that identified the sea star associated densovirus (SSaDV) as the best candidate culprit for sea star wasting disease. Eight months later, my dad passed away from a rare condition called “myelodysplastic syndrome”, which is a heterogeneous group of diseases that manifest with similar symptoms. Often in biology and… Read More New Paper on Sea Star Wasting!

Its hard to believe I’ve been in Wellington for over 2 weeks now, but as they say, time flies! And how it has flown in the tremendous winds in Wellington – the city is well known for being NZ’s windiest city. Not far from our house is the Wellington Airport runway… and boy is this… Read More Windy Welly…