I don’t even remember exactly how it got started. I know that we had a group of undergrads that joined the lab in Fall 2012. Jenna Lang and I were trying to find a project where we could try having undergrads do a 16S study. I’m not sure how aquariums came up, but somebody had …
A new paper from Van Bonn et al studies the effect of a water change on the bacterial community of an aquarium. Unfortunately, only the abstract is available openly, but it seems pretty cool: The bacterial community composition and structure of water from an established teleost fish system was examined before, during and after a major water change …
Researchers in Egypt did a fascinating study recently on probiotics for fish. They tested the effect of three different types of Psuedomonas fluorescens on two pathogens that affect tilapia in the Nile (P. angulliseptica and S. faecium). Their aim was to find a more eco-friendly way of controlling the pathogens in aquaculture compared to chemical antimicrobials. The probiotic was indeed …
Starting in the fall of 2012 we began a second project to involve undergraduates (and a high school student) in real research that relates to the microbiology of the built environment. This time we looked at biogeography and succession in microbial communities found in aquariums. A description of the project can be found here and …
Last year as part of microBEnet’s mandate to perform outreach associated with the microbiology of the built environment we sponsored and managed an undergraduate research project. In this we isolated organisms from the built environment and then sequenced several reference genomes. This work is currently being prepared in a series of genome announcement publications. (see …
Last night was the Microbiology of the Built Environment session at the bi-annual Lake Arrowhead meeting. This session was organized and sponsored by microBEnet. I recorded some of the talks and will post those videos here after some editing. Here’s a summary of the speakers and the topics discussed. The first speaker was James Meadow …
Eww … see Fish Tank Granuloma Caused by Mycobacterium marinum. Seems that this Mycobacterium species commonly infects people who come into contact with marine mammals and fish tanks. Gross but worth checking out.
Recently I wrote here about a new report on a citizen microbiology effort focusing on microbes in water heaters: More on citizen microbiology project from @Penn_State & @NASA on thermophiles in water heaters via @scicheer @Sci4Cits Well, a new paper in PLoS One (PLoS ONE: Aquarium Nitrification Revisited: Thaumarchaeota Are the Dominant Ammonia Oxidizers in Freshwater …