CC&E Collaborates Across Disciplines via 2020 Fall Discover Grants

The LSU College of the Coast & Environment, or CC&E, is empowering students to explore a world of possibilities by fostering collaborative research across disciplines. This semester, four 2020 Fall Discover Grant recipients from a range of disciplines are mentoring with faculty experts from the college, providing them with multiple approaches to address challenging topics.

According to Sibel Bargu Ates, CC&E’s associate dean of academics, “Today's students are looking for unique opportunities to receive an interdisciplinary education. Students learning in this way are better equipped to apply the knowledge they receive in one discipline to another, and our faculty’s broad expertise offers that.”

Survival and Toxicity of Overwintering Cyanobacteria in Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana

Advisor: Sibel Bargu Ates, CC&E Associate Dean of Academics and Professor in the Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences
Student: Lauren Lewellen, Biochemistry

Sibel Bargu Ates, PhD, will be working closely with undergraduate Lauren Lewellen who is researching cyanobacteria harmful algal blooms, or CyanoHABs, that occur in Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana. They will examine two common toxic cyanobacteria genera, Microcystis and Dolichosperum, that can form dormant cysts allowing them to survive colder temperatures and lack of nutrients during winter months. This overwintering ability may support an earlier return to their original active state as temperatures increase earlier in the spring due to global climate change and nutrients become more available. This could increase the duration of cyanoHABs in Lake Pontchartrain and the threat they pose to people and ecosystems there.

Composition of Fish Gut Microbiomes in LSU Lakes and their Application in Fisheries Research

Advisor: Jennifer Brum, Assistant Professor, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences
Student: Victoria Rittell, Biochemistry

Jennifer Brum, PhD, is an expert on the ecology and biogeochemical impacts of aquatic viruses. She is working with Victoria Rittell to study the communities of microbes, or bacteria, that live in the stomachs of fish in the LSU Lakes. They will perform gene sequencing on one species of pelagic fish, or open-water fish, and one species of demersal fish, or fish living close to the lake floor, to identify differences in their microbial communities, or microbiomes. Like in humans, gut microbiomes are important in regulating the host organism’s health, and this analysis will help researchers to better understand the health of economically and ecologically relevant fish and fisheries in Louisiana. 

To learn more about microbes in our environment, register for our free, online micro course.

Diet Composition of Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) in the Gulf of Mexico

Advisor: Michael Dance, Assistant Professor, Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences
Student: Josef Schuster, Natural Resource Ecology & Management

Swordfish support economically valuable commercial and recreational fisheries around the world, including a rapidly growing fishery in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Michael Dance, PhD, is an expert in fisheries science and ecology who is working with Josef Schuster on one of the first swordfish feeding studies in the northern Gulf of Mexico to assess the recent and long-term diets of swordfish. The goal of this study is to identify the suite prey taxa supporting swordfish in this region and to characterize the contributions of inshore vs. offshore derived prey to swordfish diet. Preliminary results from samples taken from Venice, Louisiana, indicate that Gulf swordfish diets may differ from swordfish in other regions due to their unique forage base.

Photosynthetic Response of a Cladium jamaicense-dominated Marsh Community to Pulsed and Prolonged Saltwater Intrusion

Advisor: Tracy Quirk, Associate Professor, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences
Student: Danielle Soileau, Coastal Environmental Science

The future of coastal wetlands may depend on how resilient they are to environmental changes such as sea-level rise, increases in storm intensity, and human modifications to natural hydrology. These changes can cause salt-water to intrude into tidal freshwater marshes, or TFMs, which can kill the freshwater or brackish vegetation and result in the marsh converting to open water. Wetland ecology expert Tracy Quirk, PhD, is mentoring Danielle Soileau for a project that will test how well three of the dominant species in the Louisiana TFM community, Cladium jamaicense, Bacopa monnieri, and Polygonum punctatum, will tolerate pulsed and chronic salt-water exposure. Their goal is to be able to predict the future of the marsh community as salt-water encroaches more inland, and their results will help guide management decisions and restoration initiatives.