Stairs lab
We’re interested in understanding how microbial eukaryotes – a.k.a ‘protists’ – have evolved to thrive in low-oxygen environments. Low-oxygen environments are important ecosystems that host diverse microbial communities. The interactions between these microbes can have major environmental impacts to global geochemical carbon, nitrogen and sulfur cycles. Moreover, the interactions between these microbes in the anaerobic digestive tracts of animals can have major health and veterinary consequences. Living without oxygen can be challenging. To survive in such environments, some organisms work together using metabolic syntrophy – a type of mutualistic symbiosis where there is a metabolic division of labour amongst individuals in a community. We know that metabolic syntrophy is common among anaerobic prokaryotes, but less is known about the role of syntrophy in the survival of microbial eukaryotes in these environments. Using a combination of genomic and cellular biological techniques we aim to discover and characterize protist:microbe interactions from diverse anaerobic environments such as anoxic aquatic sediments. We also study the strategies protists and invertebrates use to transfer electrons without oxygen.
Popular science presentation
Over the past 60 years, oxygen levels in the world's oceans have decreased by two percent, which has led to the creation of more oxygen-poor environments. We are trying to understand how microorganisms cooperate to survive in these environments and the roles they play in producing harmful greenhouse gases such as methane. Oxygen-poor environments are the domain of the microbes including prokaryotic (e.g., bacteria and archaea) and unicellular eukaryotes (or ‘protists’). To live in these environments, these organisms often cooperate where they exchange nutrients to survive. Together, they also create a range of gases, such as nitrous oxide and methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. These gases spread into the atmosphere, affecting the climate and the global cycle of nitrogen and carbon. Currently, researchers know a lot about prokaryotic cells in oxygen-poor environments. Knowledge about how eukaryotic cells work is much less. We are trying to fill this knowledge gap: What other single-celled organisms live in these environments? Do they interact with each other? How do they find each other? What molecules flow between organisms? And how are they affected by the changing temperature, oxygen concentrations and pH of the climate? A more comprehensive understanding of how oxygen-poor environments work is important in order to predict how they may affect the oceans and climate in the future.
Research projects
- Genome analysis of breviate protists.
- Microbial ecology of protist microcosms.
- Alternative quinone biosynthesis.