As of 1 January 2025, Bob will be stepping away from Chair of the Department of Biology and begin a new role as Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs in the College of Science and Technology at Temple University.

Chris successfully defended his dissertation: “Investigations of Bacterivory and Microplastics in the Southern Ocean” on December 11, 2024. Congratulations Chris!

JayDiii is teaching a mixed graduate/undergraduate course in Genomics for a faculty member who is on a stint with the National Science Foundation.

A Mathematical Model of Diel Activity and Long Time Survival in Phototrophic Mixed-Species Subaerial Biofilms. Tenore, A., Russo, F., Jacob, J., Grattepanche, J.-D., Buttaro, B., Klapper, I.Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 86(10), p.123. IF 2.0

Eli successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation on March 26, 2024. Congratulations on a great presentation of an excellent body of work. Title: “Influence of abiotic environmental factors on physiological responses and mixotrophy in freshwater and marine chrysophytes.”

Jean-David Grattepanche, Eli Chang and Bob Sanders gave presentations at The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography annual meeting in New Orleans. February 18-23.

https://cst.temple.edu/faculty-staff/graduate-awards

• Princiotta, S.D., A. VanKuren, C.E. Williamson, R.W. Sanders, M.S. Valiñas. 2023. Disentangling the role of light and nutrient limitation on bacterivory by mixotrophic nanoflagellates. Journal of Phycology 00:1-6, online June 2023. [doi:0.1111/jpy.13358]
• Millette, N.C., R.J. Gast, J.Y. Luo, H.V. Moeller, K. Stamieszkin, K.H. Andersen, E.F. Brownlee, N. Cohen, S. Duhamel, S. Dutkiewicz, P.M. Glibert, M.D. Johnson, S.G. Leles, A.E. Maloney, G. McManus, N. Poulton, S.D. Princiotta, R.W. Sanders and S. Wilken. 2023. Mixoplankton and mixotrophy: Future research priorities. Journal of Plankton Research. fbad020. [doi:10.1093/plankt/fbad020]
• Princiotta, S.D., Nguyen^, T.** and R.W.  Sanders. 2023. High abundances and negligible grazing during winter by the mixotrophic chrysophyte Dinobryon. Fottea 23:201-207. [doi: 10.5507/fot.2022.020]
• Grattepanche, J.-D., W.J. Jeffrey, R.J. Gast, R.W. Sanders. 2022. Diversity of microbial eukaryotes along the West Antarctic peninsula in austral spring. Frontiers in Microbiology 13:844856 [doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.844856]
• Sanders, R.W. 2021. Protists: Flagellates and Amoeba. in: Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Reference Module. Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-819166-8.00079-7

Here’s another link to the blog

Our colleague Wade Jeffrey, a professor at Western Florida University and collaborator on our NSF Antarctic grant, has a show of wonderful photos that he has taken during his numerous trips (including several with us) in the Southern Ocean. Here’s a link.

Bob Sanders (TU), J.D. Grattepanche (TU), Nicole Millett (WHOI, now at VIMS), Wade Jeffrey (UWF) and Leila Harris (UWF) returned in December 2019 from another oceanographic expedition off the west coast of the Antarctic peninsula. This cruise on the Nathaniel B. Palmer was the second of two cruises to investigate the ecology and diversity of phagotrophic phytoplankton (mixotrophs). We consider it a success, though delays in the return of samples to the US and shutdown of out labs by the pandemic put us far behind schedule in our analyses. We were scheduled for another in April 2021, but the pandemic intervened there too, putting a halt to all US Antarctic expeditions. for the 2021 season.

Bob Sanders was joined by Jay Diii Grattepanche and Chris Carnivale from Temple, Wade Jeffrey and Leila Harris from Western Florida University, and Nicole Millette from WHOI on an early Austral spring research cruise to the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Supported by NSF. Here’s a link to a few photos: Antarctica Oct to Dec 2019. Our cruise designation was “Mixotrophic Eukaryotes in Antarctica: Their Habitat, Environmental Adaptation & Diversity (MEATHEAD)”

J.D. Grattepanche (TU), Becky Gast (WHOI), Wade Jeffrey (UWF) and Ari Simmering (UWF) have recently returned from an oceanographic voyage off the west coast of the Antarctic peninsula. This cruise on the Laurence M. Gould was the first of two cruises to investigate the ecology and diversity of phagotrophic phytoplankton (mixotrophs). Check out the cruise through Becky’s blog – it’s on the right-hand column of her website: https://www2.whoi.edu/staff/rgast/

Bob Sanders and Laura Toran (Temple University Earth & Environmental Sciences) co-sponsored Gene Likens’ recent award of the Franklin Medal in Earth & Environmental Science. Here’s a link to the Franklin Institute’s page of the honorees and award ceremony for 2019.

(Bob Sanders, Gene Likens, Laura Toran)

Gast, R.J., S.A. Fay and R.W. Sanders. 2018. Mixotrophic activity and diversity of Antarctic marine protists in austral summer. Frontiers in Marine Science 5:13 is available with all of the papers in that special edition as an e-book available at the link here.

Jean-David Grattepanche, a broadly-experienced protistologist, has joined the lab to work on our recently funded NSF grant that includes new research curises to Antarctica. J.D. has combined the power of bioinformatics, ecology and evolution to study eukaryotic microbes, with a focus on the “SAR” clade (Stramenopila, Alveolata and Rhizaria; (Grattepanche, et al. 2018) in marine and freshwater settings. He moves to Philadelphia from the Smith College lab of Laura Katz.

Congratulations to Andrew Van Kuren for winning a 2018 College of Science and Technology Outstanding TA award.

A new paper, by Zaid McKie-Krisberg, Bob. Sanders and Becky Gast, has been accepted in Frontiers of Marine Science. Evaluation of mixotrophy-associated gene expression in two species of polar marine algae. [doi: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00273] .