The People of the Baines Lab

Who are we?

Current Members

I received my Bachelors degree from Drew University, double majoring in Biology and English. My PhD is from Yale University in Biology from the Division of Ecology and Evolution. My dissertation work was conducted at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies with Mike Pace and Gene Likens acting as my coadvisors. My thesis concerned how two key fates of primary production (excretion and sedimentation) scaled with productivity in lakes and oceans. I spent a summer in Sweden at Uppsala University in the lab of Markus Meili studying sedimentation before moving to McGill University the following summer to work with Asit Mazumder and Jaap Kaalf while acting as McGill field station manager. I then moved to the University of Wisconsin to work with Stephen Carpenter and Tim Kratz with the North Temperate Lakes LTER, where I worked on issues regarding synchrony. I moved to Stony Brook as a research scientist in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, where I spent most of my time working with Nicholas Fisher on trophic transfer of trace elements. I became an assistant professor in Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook in 2007.

Postdoctoral Associates

Katie Schneider, Postdoctoral Associate

My Ph.D. research at the University of Maryland focused on how the availability of nutrients and energy can influence the biochemistry, community dynamics and biogeography of cave arthropods. Now, as a postdoctoral associate in the Baines Lab, I am expanding on these interests, investigating physiological traits that determine how species respond to spatial and temporal changes in abiotic conditions (including resource availability) and the larger implications thereof. Understanding the traits that drive these species-specific responses may enable us to predict how the community composition can shift with dynamic conditions. In addition, functional traits that influence species success may be associated with tradeoffs between other traits,

I am currently using marine diatoms to examine functional traits that influence competitive ability and defense in a dynamic environment. I am interested in how these functional traits are related to the degree of silicification of the diatoms, a trait which displays great interspecific variation. Specifically I am investigating how compositional changes brought about by changing conditions can lead to a shift in the trait space of diatom silicification. As silicification is an important factor influencing carbon sequestration, community-driven alterations in the silica content of species will have biogeochemical implications.

Ph.D. Students

Mary Alldred, Ph.D. Candidate

Broadly, I am interested in how organisms and communities affect ecosystem processes. For my dissertation, I am examining the effects of plant communities on denitrification in wetlandecosystems. Denitrification is the microbial reduction of nitrate to dinitrogen gas. As important sites of denitrificaiton, wetlands are responsible for removing a significant fraction of mineralized nitrogen from watersheds. We know that plant communities are shifting rapidly, due to climate change, sea-level rise, land-use changes, and species invasions. We also know that plants modify denitrification rates by altering sediment conditions. However, to date, we have no framework for predicting how changes in plant-community distributions will affect denitrification. My research focuses on identifying and modeling functional plant characteristics as predictors of denitrification rates.

Xi Chen, Ph.D. Candidate

My dissertation research addresses the limitation of secondary production by iron. As an essential nutrient, Fe limits the primary production in over 30% of the world’s ocean, resulting in High-Nutrient Low-Chlorophyll (HNLC) conditions. However, the effect of Fe deficiency on zooplankton grazers has been largely overlooked. For my dissertation, I cultured a group of marine microalgae under Fe-replete and Fe-depleted conditions in a trace metal clean environment, and studied the physiological and ecological responses of model copepods fed these algae by analyzing a suit of parameters. I also participated in a cruise study to Costa Rica upwelling dome to examine the prevalence of Fe limitation on secondary production in the field. Given the role that zooplankton play in the elemental cycling, this study could have important implications for biogeochemical cycles of Fe and C, and enhance our understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns in marine zooplankton productivity and community structure.