Henry Williams
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, FL·Microbiology & Immunology
Bacteria help keep the ocean's carbon cycle running. Larger marine organisms release dissolved organic matter, bacteria take it up, and predators of bacteria then return those nutrients to the wider food web when they kill their prey.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Earth & Environmental Science
Ecology & Evolution
- Topics
predatory bacteria
Bdellovibrio
micropredators
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- 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.
- Count micropredators and their bacterial prey using qPCR, which measures specific DNA sequences, along with flow cytometry and direct microscopic counting.
- Identify the environmental tipping point at which the microbial loop, the bacteria-driven recycling of dissolved organic matter, becomes impaired.
- Profile changes in microbial community composition under different ocean conditions using metagenomics, which sequences DNA from whole communities.
More about the research
This recycling loop is called the microbial loop. Rising ocean temperatures, acidification and nutrient pollution (eutrophication) could disrupt it. Little is known about one group of these predators: Bdellovibrio and similar bacteria, which hunt and kill other bacteria.
Why it matters
Changes in how ocean bacteria are killed and recycled affect how carbon and nutrients move through marine food webs. Finding the temperature, acidity and nutrient thresholds at which the microbial loop breaks down could improve understanding of how warming, acidifying and nutrient-polluted oceans will cycle carbon. That knowledge matters for fisheries and for climate projections.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Erin McParland
Oregon State University, OR·Earth & Environmental Science
Quantify about 150 small polar extracellular metabolites in seawater across four regimes that differ in biological productivity and oxygen, using new metabolomics methods.
Winifred Johnson
University of North Carolina Wilmington, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify which marine microbial groups produce which osmolytes under nitrogen stress by pairing osmolyte measurements with transcriptomics in laboratory cultures.
Jeff Bowman
University of California-San Diego, CA·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify the ecological conditions and microbial taxa that explain variation in microbial growth efficiency along light and nutrient gradients in the California Current ecosystem.
The school
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University: 5 labs on PI Pages, $69M a year on research, 41 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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