Zoe Finkel, Ph.D.

SCOPE-Gradients Project: Quantifying the macromolecular composition of microbial communities across ocean transition zones

We are quantifying the macromolecular composition of the microbial community across the North Pacific transition zone to elucidate the role of resource supply and species-specific differences of macromolecular composition in regulating biogeochemical cycling and marine microbial community structure and function.

CBIOMES project: Characterizing macromolecular allocation strategies used by marine microbes for trait-based models

Our long-term objectives are to quantify how marine microbes allocate the elements carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus and their major macromolecules (protein, carbohydrate, lipid, nucleic acids and photosynthetic pigments) in response to various environmental conditions. We will identify allocation strategies that are universal, vary across functional groupings (including size) or are species specific. This information will be used to help construct and test next-generation models of microbial growth and elemental composition and aid in the understanding and modeling of marine microbial biogeography and ocean biogeochemistry.

Bio:
Zoe Finkel is a Canada research chair in marine microbial macroecology and co-director of the Marine Macroecology and Biogeochemistry Lab at Dalhousie University. Finkel received a Ph.D. in oceanography from Rutgers University and did postdoctoral work in the Department of Biology at Queen’s University.

Finkel’s research focuses on how climate change interacts with physiological, ecological and evolutionary processes to influence phytoplankton communities and global biogeochemical cycles over a variety of timescales. Her work includes experimentation with phytoplankton cultures, statistical analyses of phytoplankton time series data, micro-paleontological analysis of phytoplankton fossils and physiological and ecological modeling.

Finkel has received a Science to Achieve Results (STAR) fellowship from the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) postdoctoral fellowship, an NSERC University Faculty Award, and an NSERC Discovery Accelerator award. Finkel is a fellow of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.