What we do...Research

Using DNA analysis, DeLong Lab researchers and colleagues have gained new insight into how marine microbes thrive and survive at different depths of the ocean.

Microbes are the central processors of matter and energy in almost every ecosystem imaginable -- especially so in the sea. Thousands of different types of microbes, the world's smallest creatures, inhabit every cubic centimeter of seawater. They have huge effects on ocean chemistry and possibly even climate. However, their complex interactions are really tough to study in natural environments. We took a shortcut to understanding their environmental activities by analyzing the DNA from whole communities of microbes.

Our lab is currently engaged in applying contemporary genomic technologies to dissect complex microbial assemblages.  While biotic processes that occur within natural microbial communities are diverse and complex, much of this complexity is encoded in the nature, identity, structure, and dynamics of interacting genomes in situ.