Sheri Floge
Wake Forest University, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
Tiny ocean organisms called plankton form the base of marine food webs. They also drive the cycling of carbon and other elements.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Microbiology & Immunology
Ecology & Evolution
- Topics
vitamin B1
thiamin
vitamers
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2027
What they work on
- Measure how much vitamin B1 and related vitamers are released by B1-producing picocyanobacteria and heterotrophic bacteria grown in pure cultures.
- Test whether viral infection and bursting of bacterioplankton releases a different amount or mix of B1 and vitamers than release by healthy cells.
- Determine how temperature changes B1 and vitamer release and virus-driven release, and link these fluxes to biomass, growth rate and lysis rate.
More about the research
Many of them cannot make vitamin B1 (thiamin) and must absorb it, or related compounds called vitamers, from seawater. Yet scientists know little about where that supply comes from or how a warming ocean might change it.
Why it matters
Ocean models predict how productive the ocean will be and which species will dominate. Data on how B1 is supplied, and how temperature affects that supply, could improve these models. That in turn could inform predictions of how marine food webs and ocean ecosystem health may respond to warming.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Henry Williams
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, FL·Microbiology & Immunology
Measure how rising temperature, ocean acidification and nutrient enrichment change the abundance and predation rates of Bdellovibrio-like bacteria and other micropredators, using time-series experiments sampled every 3–6 hours.
John Paul Balmonte
Lehigh University, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
Compare how depressurization changes the activity of extracellular enzymes produced by deep-ocean microbial communities, using pressurization systems at sea and in the lab.
Nicole Millette
William & Mary, VA·Ecology & Evolution
Measure how much carbon eight mixotroph species get from photosynthesis versus prey ingestion under different environmental conditions, using isotopic labelling incubation experiments.
The school
Wake Forest University: 27 labs on PI Pages, $345M a year on research, 54 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.