Where are you from, and what is your role in Extreme 2004?

I am a lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, where I teach microbiology and biotechnology, and have a molecular microbial ecology research lab. This is my first opportunity to participate in a hydrothermal vent cruise and will give me the opportunity to isolate methylotrophic and methanotrophic bacteria from this unusual extreme environment and also to examine their diversity within this environment.

What questions are you trying to answer and why?

Despite the diverse geochemical and temperature gradients that are prevalent at deep-sea hydrothermal vents, relatively little is known about the diversity and ecology of the microbial communities that occupy these fluctuating high-temperature niches. Some biogeochemical studies have determined a role for microbial populations such as the sulfur-oxidizing and methane-oxidizing bacteria in this unusual ecosystem. Microbiological processes such as methane oxidation have been shown to occur within hydrothermal plumes, and submarine hydrothermal venting is a major source of methane to the ocean. Concentrations of methane reported in deep-sea hydrothermal vent fluids from the East Pacific Rise, the Galapagos, Guaymas Basin and the Southern Juan de Fuca Ridge are 105 to 107 times more concentrated in methane than the ocean bottom water into which it is being discharged.

The question I am trying to answer is what is the structure of the methane-cycling bacterial community in this environment. These communities could include methanogens, aerobic methane oxidizers (methanotrophs), and anaerobic methane-oxidizing consortia (hypothesized to include methanogens and sulfate-reducing bacteria). A combination of molecular techniques, to analyze the phylogenetic and functional genes present in DNA extracted from environmental samples and isolation of bacteria, will provide valuable information on the importance of methane-producing and methane-oxidizing microorganisms in these extreme and unusual deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems.

What is your background, and what lured you into marine science/education?

My background is in terrestrial microbiology, but the groups of bacteria which I study (methylotrophs and methanotrophs) are also present in the marine environment, which has led to a number of projects studying these organisms in the marine environment. I obtained my undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Ulster at Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK, and my Ph.D. from the University of Liverpool, England, in microbiology. I then spent the next 11 years at the University of Warwick, England, as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a research fellow with my own research group. Recently, I have moved to the University of Waikato in New Zealand where I teach microbiology.