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Lucas Beversdorf

University of Wisconsin
5525 Microbial Sciences Building
1550 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
lbeversdorf@wisc.edu
(608) 890-2858
http://beversdorf.bact.wisc.edu/Home.html

Research Projects

North Temperate Lakes Microbial Observatory

Our primary goal in the Microbial Observatory is to advance the understanding of lake bacterioplankton, whose diversity and population dynamics are currently the least understood off all freshwater planktonic organisms. Through identification and characterization of predominant bacterial populations in a suite of strongly contrasting lakes, we will gain significant new insight into the ecological roles of bacteria in diverse freshwater ecosystems. Our research is structured to answer four key questions:

Linking Nutrient Cycling to Cyanobacterial Community Structure and Succession in Lakes

Lake Mendota is an eutrophic lake that harbors an abundant and diverse array of bloom-forming cyanobacteria (also called blue-green algae). The cyanobacterial community is highly variable, contains numerous nitrogen (N2) fixing and non-N2 fixing genera, and has multiple genotypes capable of forming ephemeral, and possibly toxic, blooms. Nutrients play an integral role in structuring the cyanobacterial community, but it is unclear how phosphorus (P), nitrogen (N), and trace metal limitation might influence seasonal to decadal community dynamics ...

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