University of Southern Maine

University of Oregon, B.S., 1987
St. John's College Graduate Institute, M.A., 1989
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D., 1997

office: 406 Science
phone: 207-780-4261
fax: 207-228-8116
lmoore@usm.maine.edu 

As a marine microbial ecologist, my broad research interests focus on the phytoplankton component of the marine food web, specifically what factors influence species composition, population dynamics and distributions within a variety of marine ecosystems. I am also interested in the "flip side", i.e. how biodiversity and phytoplankton community structure influences ecosystem stability and biogeochemical cycles. To this end, my research focuses primarily on the physiological ecology of the marine phytoplankton Prochlorococcus, the recently discovered, numerically dominant component of the open ocean phytoplankton community. I employ a variety of techniques to study the light and nutrient-dependent physiology of Prochlorococcus, including cultured isolates, flow cytometry, genomics, and comparative analyses to other marine cyanobacteria.