Tag: Microbiology

A researcher in a blue sunshirt and a red life vest looks over the side of a boat as he lowers a water quality instrument into the seawater below.

From sample to source: tracking pollution pathways in AOML’s Molecular and Environmental Microbiology Lab

With sterile sample bottles at the ready, scientists in the Molecular and Environmental Microbiology Lab at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) prepare to capture water samples for analysis in the lab. Invisible to the naked eye, nutrients, pollutants, and entire communities of bacteria, algae, and other microorganisms drift through these waters leaving clues […]

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A large white CTD being deployed into the ocean off the side of a side.

How the Ocean’s Tiniest Creatures Respond to Changes in the Marine Environment, Revealed by Machine Learning Analysis of ‘Omics Data

Although too tiny to be seen by the naked eye, microscopic organisms have a big impact on our planet – supporting fisheries, degrading pollutants, and helping regulate the earth’s climate. A new study published in Nature Communications employed cutting edge research techniques (collectively referred to as ‘omics) to reveal how the ocean’s tiniest creatures respond to changes in the marine environment. This work addressed a number of objectives in the NOAA ‘Omics Strategic Plan, which calls for the characterization of food webs that sustain fisheries and vulnerable species.

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Beach at Sunrise

Update to the BEACHES Study: Children Visiting Beaches with Open Wounds are More Susceptible to Bacterial Infection

A new paper appearing in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health examines how the presence of children’s open wounds and abrasions during play at the beach may put them at greater risk of skin infections from marine bacteria and other pathogens they encounter. The study finds that children with existing or newly-acquired wounds while at the beach are more susceptible to infection.

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Women’s History Month: Omics with Kelly Goodwin

In honor of Women’s History Month, NOAA Research recently featured AOML microbiologist, Kelly Goodwin, in an article which gives readers a look inside the daily life of a researcher.  Kelly is a co-chair of the task force that’s laying out the plan to implement NOAA’s Omics Strategy, one of four science and technology strategies that aim to guide transformative advancements in the quality and timeliness of NOAA science, products and services.

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2017 Interns

Meet our Summer 2017 Interns

Each year, NOAA AOML welcomes a group of talented students from across the country to join our team by way of summer internships. Seventeen highly motivated students have traveled to our laboratory in Miami to work alongside leading oceanic and atmospheric research scientists. NOAA internships, scholarships, and fellowships provide students with an unparalleled opportunity to develop and fine tune their research and field skills, giving them a glimpse of what it takes to establish a professional career in a federal research laboratory. Each student works side by side with a AOML mentor, who help to advise the students along their chosen scientific career paths and various research projects. Here at AOML, these career opportunities include jobs in physical oceanography, ocean chemistry and ecosystems, hurricane research, engineering, computer science and communications.

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Black-band disease on a pale coral colony of Montastraea cavernosa in the Florida Keys. Photo Credit: NOAA.

NOAA Research on Microbial Communities Contributes to National Microbiome Initiative

On May 13th, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy introduced the National Microbiome Initiative, an effort to support multi-agency research to help sample and better understand communities of microorganisms that are critical to both human health and the world’s ecosystems. As the nation’s premier ocean science agency, NOAA is leading interdisciplinary research to improve observation and assessment of marine microbiomes.  To support this national initiative, NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) received nearly $2 million in funding this year to conduct a number of projects that integrate genetic sampling techniques and technologies to help advance the understanding of the ocean’s microbiomes.

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Infographic showing El Nino patterns. Photo Credit: NWS/ NCEP

Study Explores Role of El Niño in Transport of Waterborne Disease

A new study published in the journal Nature Microbiology highlights how emerging, devastating outbreaks of Vibrio infection in Latin America might be linked to El Niño, a climate pattern that periodically causes surface temperatures to warm throughout the equatorial Pacific Ocean. A researcher with the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute of Marine & Atmospheric Studies at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Lab was part of an international research team that used microbiological, genomic, and bioinformatic tools to demonstrate how El Niño provides a mechanism for the transport of disease from Asia into the Americas. 

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Coral colonies at Cheeca Rocks in the Florida Keys show evidence of bleaching. Image credit: NOAA

AOML Leads Research Efforts Across Caribbean to Improve Bleaching Predictions

For the third time in recorded history, a massive coral bleaching event is unfolding throughout the world’s oceans, stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean. Above average sea surface temperatures exacerbated by a strong El Niño could result in the planet losing up to 4,500 square miles of coral this year alone, according to NOAA. The global event is predicted to continue to impact reefs into the spring of 2016.

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The Central Caribbean Marine Institute's Little Cayman Research Centre. Image Credit: CCMI

AOML Oceanographers to Participate in New Summer Lecture Series

This summer, AOML will be diving into a new outreach initiative with the Central Caribbean Marine Institute, a coral reef research organization based in the Cayman Islands. From June through August, NOAA oceanographers from AOML will give a series of talks on various oceanographic topics to the institute’s staff and students participating in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates program at the institute’s Little Cayman Research Centre (LCRC).

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AOML interns collect a water sample in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary during the 2014 Ocean Sampling Day event. Image Credit: NOAA

AOML Enlists Citizen Scientists for International Ocean Sampling Day 2015

Researchers with AOML’s Environmental Microbiology Lab joined a global effort to sample the smallest members of the ocean ecosystem on June 21 during International Ocean Sampling Day. Organized and led by the European Union’s MicroB3 organization and the Ocean Sampling Day Consortium, Ocean Sampling Day (OSD) is a simultaneous sampling campaign of the world’s oceans and coastal waters. These cumulative samples, related in time, space and environmental parameters, contribute to determine a baseline of global marine biodiversity and functions on the molecular level.

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