REBECCA GARNER

Microeukaryotic diversity in Canadian lakes over 150 years of human impact

Microeukaryotes are incredibly diverse unicellular lifeforms which play central roles in lake food webs and elemental cycles.  This research charts the distributions of microeukaryotes in lakes across Canada for the first time with molecular genetic analysis.  To investigate how microeukaryotic communities have responded to human impact on lakes, this project reconstructs 150-year-old preindustrial assemblages from historical DNA archived in lake sediments.  I am fascinated by the microbial biosphere and am working to innovate methods for reconstructing past microbial communities using PCR-directed techniques and metagenomics.