Dana E. Hunt

Journal Article The Science of the total environment · October 2024 Global change mediated shifts in ocean temperature and circulation patterns, compounded by human activities, are leading to the expansion of marine oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) with concomitant alterations in nutrient and climate-active trace gas cycling. W ... Full text Cite

Interactions shape aquatic microbiome responses to Cu and Au nanoparticle treatments in wetland manipulation experiments.

Journal Article Environmental research · July 2024 In natural systems, organisms are embedded in complex networks where their physiology and community composition is shaped by both biotic and abiotic factors. Therefore, to assess the ecosystem-level effects of contaminants, we must pair complex, multi-trop ... Full text Cite

Evidence for Kilometer-Scale Biophysical Features at the Gulf Stream Front

Journal Article Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans · March 1, 2024 Understanding the interplay of ocean physics and biology at the submesoscale and below (<30 km) is an ongoing challenge in oceanography. While poorly constrained, these scales may be of critical importance for understanding how changing ocean dynamics will ... Full text Cite

Enhancing radiological monitoring of ¹³⁷Cs in coastal environments using taxonomic signals in brown seaweeds.

Journal Article Journal of environmental radioactivity · November 2023 With the rapidly expanding global nuclear industry, more efficient and direct radiological monitoring approaches are needed to ensure the associated environmental health impacts and risk remain fully assessed and undertaken as robustly as possible. Convent ... Full text Cite

Unraveling the functional dark matter through global metagenomics.

Journal Article Nature · October 2023 Metagenomes encode an enormous diversity of proteins, reflecting a multiplicity of functions and activities1,2. Exploration of this vast sequence space has been limited to a comparative analysis against reference microbial genomes and protein fa ... Full text Cite

The Impact of Gulf Stream Frontal Eddies on Ecology and Biogeochemistry near Cape Hatteras

Preprint · 2023 Full text Cite

A Gulf Stream frontal eddy harbors a distinct microbiome compared to adjacent waters.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2023 Mesoscale oceanographic features, including eddies, have the potential to alter productivity and other biogeochemical rates in the ocean. Here, we examine the microbiome of a cyclonic, Gulf Stream frontal eddy, with a distinct origin and environmental para ... Full text Cite

Rapid changes in coastal ocean microbiomes uncoupled with shifts in environmental variables.

Journal Article Environmental microbiology · September 2022 Disturbances, here defined as events that directly alter microbial community composition, are commonly studied in host-associated and engineered systems. In spite of global change both altering environmental averages and increasing extreme events, there ha ... Full text Open Access Cite

Patchy Blooms and Multifarious Ecotypes of Labyrinthulomycetes Protists and Their Implication in Vertical Carbon Export in the Pelagic Eastern Indian Ocean.

Journal Article Microbiology spectrum · June 2022 Labyrinthulomycetes protists are an important heterotrophic component of microeukaryotes in the world's oceans, but their distribution patterns and ecological roles are poorly understood in pelagic waters. This study employed flow cytometry and high-throug ... Full text Cite

Thousands of small, novel genes predicted in global phage genomes.

Journal Article Cell reports · June 2022 Small genes (<150 nucleotides) have been systematically overlooked in phage genomes. We employ a large-scale comparative genomics approach to predict >40,000 small-gene families in ∼2.3 million phage genome contigs. We find that small genes in phage genome ... Full text Cite

Vertical community patterns of Labyrinthulomycetes protists reveal their potential importance in the oceanic biological pump.

Journal Article Environmental microbiology · April 2022 The biological pump plays a vital role in exporting organic particles into the deep ocean for long-term carbon sequestration. However, much remains unknown about some of its key microbial players. In this study, Labyrinthulomycetes protists (LP) were used ... Full text Cite

Niche Partitioning of Labyrinthulomycete Protists Across Sharp Coastal Gradients and Their Putative Relationships With Bacteria and Fungi.

Journal Article Frontiers in microbiology · January 2022 While planktonic microbes play key roles in the coastal oceans, our understanding of heterotrophic microeukaryotes' ecology, particularly their spatiotemporal patterns, drivers, and functions, remains incomplete. In this study, we focus on a ubiquitous mar ... Full text Cite

Patchy Distributions and Distinct Niche Partitioning of Mycoplankton Populations across a Nearshore to Open Ocean Gradient.

Journal Article Microbiology spectrum · December 2021 Evidence increasingly suggests planktonic fungi (or mycoplankton) play an important role in marine food webs and biogeochemical cycles. In order to better understand their ecological role and how oceanographic gradients from the coastal to open ocean shape ... Full text Cite

Host genotype structures the microbiome of a globally dispersed marine phytoplankton.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · November 2021 Phytoplankton support complex bacterial microbiomes that rely on phytoplankton-derived extracellular compounds and perform functions necessary for algal growth. Recent work has revealed sophisticated interactions and exchanges of molecules between specific ... Full text Cite

A genomic catalog of Earth's microbiomes.

Journal Article Nature biotechnology · April 2021 The reconstruction of bacterial and archaeal genomes from shotgun metagenomes has enabled insights into the ecology and evolution of environmental and host-associated microbiomes. Here we applied this approach to >10,000 metagenomes collected from diverse ... Full text Cite

Author Correction: A genomic catalog of Earth's microbiomes.

Journal Article Nature biotechnology · April 2021 Full text Cite

Environmental stability impacts the differential sensitivity of marine microbiomes to increases in temperature and acidity.

Journal Article The ISME journal · January 2021 Ambient conditions shape microbiome responses to both short- and long-duration environment changes through processes including physiological acclimation, compositional shifts, and evolution. Thus, we predict that microbial communities inhabiting locations ... Full text Cite

Annual Partitioning Patterns of Labyrinthulomycetes Protists Reveal Their Multifaceted Role in Marine Microbial Food Webs.

Journal Article Applied and environmental microbiology · January 2021 Heterotrophic microbes play a key role in remineralizing organic material in the coastal ocean. While there is a significant body of literature examining heterotrophic bacterioplankton and phytoplankton communities, much less is known about the diversity, ... Full text Cite

Reused cultivation water from a self-inhibiting alga does not inhibit other algae but alters their microbiomes

Journal Article Algal Research · October 1, 2020 Economical production of algal commodities (food, feed, and fuels) requires reusing cultivation water to reduce operating costs. While some algae strains show growth inhibition in reused water, other strains appear unaffected. Reusing water to grow differe ... Full text Cite

Microbial communities across nearshore to offshore coastal transects are primarily shaped by distance and temperature.

Journal Article Environmental microbiology · October 2019 Recent studies have focused on linking marine microbial communities with environmental factors, yet, relatively little is known about the drivers of microbial community patterns across the complex gradients from the nearshore to open ocean. Here, we examin ... Full text Cite

Oxygen levels differentially attenuate the structure and diversity of microbial communities in the oceanic oxygen minimal zones.

Interactions shape aquatic microbiome responses to Cu and Au nanoparticle treatments in wetland manipulation experiments.

Evidence for Kilometer-Scale Biophysical Features at the Gulf Stream Front

Enhancing radiological monitoring of ¹³⁷Cs in coastal environments using taxonomic signals in brown seaweeds.

Unraveling the functional dark matter through global metagenomics.

The Impact of Gulf Stream Frontal Eddies on Ecology and Biogeochemistry near Cape Hatteras

Preprint · 2023 Full text Cite

A Gulf Stream frontal eddy harbors a distinct microbiome compared to adjacent waters.

Rapid changes in coastal ocean microbiomes uncoupled with shifts in environmental variables.

Patchy Blooms and Multifarious Ecotypes of Labyrinthulomycetes Protists and Their Implication in Vertical Carbon Export in the Pelagic Eastern Indian Ocean.

Thousands of small, novel genes predicted in global phage genomes.

Vertical community patterns of Labyrinthulomycetes protists reveal their potential importance in the oceanic biological pump.

Niche Partitioning of Labyrinthulomycete Protists Across Sharp Coastal Gradients and Their Putative Relationships With Bacteria and Fungi.

Patchy Distributions and Distinct Niche Partitioning of Mycoplankton Populations across a Nearshore to Open Ocean Gradient.

Host genotype structures the microbiome of a globally dispersed marine phytoplankton.

A genomic catalog of Earth's microbiomes.

Author Correction: A genomic catalog of Earth's microbiomes.

Journal Article Nature biotechnology · April 2021 Full text Cite

Environmental stability impacts the differential sensitivity of marine microbiomes to increases in temperature and acidity.

Annual Partitioning Patterns of Labyrinthulomycetes Protists Reveal Their Multifaceted Role in Marine Microbial Food Webs.

Reused cultivation water from a self-inhibiting alga does not inhibit other algae but alters their microbiomes

Microbial communities across nearshore to offshore coastal transects are primarily shaped by distance and temperature.

Conserved Microbial Toxicity Responses for Acute and Chronic Silver Nanoparticle Treatments in Wetland Mesocosms.

Journal Article Environmental science & technology · March 2019 Most studies of bacterial exposure to environmental contaminants focus on acute treatments; however, the impacts of single, high-dose exposures on microbial communities may not readily be extended to the more likely scenario of chronic, low-dose contaminan ... Full text Cite

A High-Resolution Time Series Reveals Distinct Seasonal Patterns of Planktonic Fungi at a Temperate Coastal Ocean Site (Beaufort, North Carolina, USA).

Journal Article Applied and environmental microbiology · November 2018 There is a growing awareness of the ecological and biogeochemical importance of fungi in coastal marine systems. While highly diverse fungi have been discovered in these marine systems, still, little is known about their seasonality and associated drivers ... Full text Cite

Organic matter modifies biochemical but not most behavioral responses of the clam Ruditapes philippinarum to nanosilver exposure.

Journal Article Marine environmental research · February 2018 Adsorption of dissolved organic matter (DOM) can alter the environmental fate, bioavailability and toxicity of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs). However, a number of questions remain about DOM's ability to modify nanotoxicity. Here, we examine the impact of h ... Full text Cite

Annual community patterns are driven by seasonal switching between closely related marine bacteria.

Journal Article The ISME journal · November 2017 This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/ismej.2017.4. ... Full text Cite

Annual community patterns are driven by seasonal switching between closely related marine bacteria.

Journal Article The ISME journal · June 2017 Marine microbes exhibit seasonal cycles in community composition, yet the key drivers of these patterns and microbial population fidelity to specific environmental conditions remain to be determined. To begin addressing these questions, we characterized mi ... Full text Cite

Draft Genome Sequences of Three Bacterial Isolates from Cultures of the Marine Diatom Thalassiosira rotula.

Journal Article Genome announcements · May 2017 Phytoplankton often both provision and depend on heterotrophic bacteria. In order to investigate these relationships further, we sequenced draft genomes of three bacterial isolates from cultures of the marine diatom Thalassiosira rotula to identify ... Full text Cite

Selective feeding by the giant barrel sponge enhances foraging efficiency

Journal Article Limnology and Oceanography · July 1, 2016 Foraging theory predicts the evolution of feeding behaviors that increase consumer fitness. Sponges were among the earliest metazoans on earth and developed a unique filter-feeding mechanism that does not rely on a nervous system. Once thought indiscrimina ... Full text Cite

Insensitivity of Diverse and Temporally Variable Particle-Associated Microbial Communities to Bulk Seawater Environmental Parameters.

Journal Article Applied and environmental microbiology · June 2016 UnlabelledThere is a growing recognition of the roles of marine microenvironments as reservoirs of biodiversity and as sites of enhanced biological activity and in facilitating biological interactions. Here, we examine the bacterial community inha ... Full text Cite

Thermally adaptive tradeoffs in closely related marine bacterial strains.

Journal Article Environmental microbiology · July 2015 Time series studies have shown that some bacterial taxa occur only at specific times of the year while others are ubiquitous in spite of seasonal shifts in environmental variables. Here, we ask if these ubiquitous clades are generalists that grow over a wi ... Full text Cite

A network-based approach to disturbance transmission through microbial interactions.

Journal Article Frontiers in microbiology · January 2015 Microbes numerically dominate aquatic ecosystems and play key roles in the biogeochemistry and the health of these environments. Due to their short generations times and high diversity, microbial communities are among the first responders to environmental ... Full text Cite

Aging of fullerene C₆₀ nanoparticle suspensions in the presence of microbes.

Journal Article Water research · November 2014 Despite the growing use of carbon nanomaterials in commercial applications, very little is known about the fate of these nanomaterials once they are released into the environment. The carbon-carbon bonding of spherical sp(2) hybridized fullerene (C60) form ... Full text Cite

Vibrio metoecus sp. nov., a close relative of Vibrio cholerae isolated from coastal brackish ponds and clinical specimens.

Journal Article International journal of systematic and evolutionary microbiology · September 2014 A Gram-staining-negative, curved-rod-shaped bacterium with close resemblance to Vibrio cholerae, the aetiological agent of cholera, was isolated over the course of several years from coastal brackish water (17 strains) and from clinical cases (two strains) ... Full text Cite

Emerging contaminant or an old toxin in disguise? Silver nanoparticle impacts on ecosystems.

Journal Article Environmental science & technology · May 2014 The use of antimicrobial silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in consumer-products is rising. Much of these AgNPs are expected to enter the wastewater stream, with up to 10% of that eventually released as effluent into aquatic ecosystems with unknown ecological co ... Full text Open Access Cite

Dramatic variability of the carbonate system at a temperate coastal ocean site (Beaufort, North Carolina, USA) is regulated by physical and biogeochemical processes on multiple timescales.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2013 Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) from anthropogenic sources is acidifying marine environments resulting in potentially dramatic consequences for the physical, chemical and biological functioning of these ecosystems. If current trends continue, m ... Full text Open Access Cite

Relationship between abundance and specific activity of bacterioplankton in open ocean surface waters.

Journal Article Applied and environmental microbiology · January 2013 Marine microbial communities are complex and dynamic, and their ecology impacts biogeochemical cycles in pelagic ecosystems. Yet, little is known about the relative activities of different microbial populations within genetically diverse communities. We us ... Full text Cite

Local mobile gene pools rapidly cross species boundaries to create endemicity within global Vibrio cholerae populations.

Journal Article mBio · January 2011 Vibrio cholerae represents both an environmental pathogen and a widely distributed microbial species comprised of closely related strains occurring in the tropical to temperate coastal ocean across the globe (Colwell RR, Science 274:2025-2031, 1996; Griffi ... Full text Cite

Resource partitioning and sympatric differentiation among closely related bacterioplankton.

Journal Article Science · May 23, 2008 Identifying ecologically differentiated populations within complex microbial communities remains challenging, yet is critical for interpreting the evolution and ecology of microbes in the wild. Here we describe spatial and temporal resource partitioning am ... Full text Link to item Cite

Rapid chemotactic response enables marine bacteria to exploit ephemeral microscale nutrient patches.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · March 2008 Because ocean water is typically resource-poor, bacteria may gain significant growth advantages if they can exploit the ephemeral nutrient patches originating from numerous, small sources. Although this interaction has been proposed to enhance biogeochemic ... Full text Cite

Conservation of the chitin utilization pathway in the Vibrionaceae.

Journal Article Applied and environmental microbiology · January 2008 Vibrionaceae are regarded as important marine chitin degraders, and attachment to chitin regulates important biological functions; yet, the degree of chitin pathway conservation in Vibrionaceae is unknown. Here, a core chitin degradation pathway is propose ... Full text Cite

Patterns and mechanisms of genetic and phenotypic differentiation in marine microbes.

Journal Article Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · November 2006 Microbes in the ocean dominate biogeochemical processes and are far more diverse than anticipated. Thus, in order to understand the ocean system, we need to delineate microbial populations with predictable ecological functions. Recent observations suggest ... Full text Cite

Evaluation of 23S rRNA PCR primers for use in phylogenetic studies of bacterial diversity.

Journal Article Applied and environmental microbiology · March 2006 The availability of a diverse set of 23S rRNA gene sequences enabled evaluation of the specificity of 39 previously published and 4 newly designed primers specific for bacteria. An extensive clone library constructed using an optimized primer pair resulted ... Full text Cite

Genotypic diversity within a natural coastal bacterioplankton population.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · February 2005 The genomic diversity and relative importance of distinct genotypes within natural bacterial populations have remained largely unknown. Here, we analyze the diversity and annual dynamics of a group of coastal bacterioplankton (greater than 99% 16S ribosoma ... Full text Cite

Fine-scale phylogenetic architecture of a complex bacterial community.

Journal Article Nature · July 2004 Although molecular data have revealed the vast scope of microbial diversity, two fundamental questions remain unanswered even for well-defined natural microbial communities: how many bacterial types co-exist, and are such types naturally organized into phy ... Full text Cite

A(r)Ray of hope in analysis of the function and diversity of microbial communities.

Journal Article The Biological bulletin · April 2003 The vast majority of microorganisms in the environment remain uncultured, and their existence is known only from sequences retrieved by PCR. As a consequence, our understanding of the ecological function of dominant microbial populations in the environment ... Full text Cite

A(r)ray of hope in diversity analysis of microbial function and communities

Journal Article Biological Bulletin · 2003 Cite