{"id":352369,"date":"2021-09-27T06:01:13","date_gmt":"2021-09-26T20:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=352369"},"modified":"2021-09-27T06:01:13","modified_gmt":"2021-09-26T20:01:13","slug":"uog-student-discovers-new-algae-species-in-micronesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/uog-student-discovers-new-algae-species-in-micronesia\/","title":{"rendered":"UOG student discovers new algae species in Micronesia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Britney
Britney Sison, left, and Gabriella Prelosky collect mud samples at Achang Bay mangrove in Guam with their research mentor,\u00a0University of Guam professor emeritus of Biology Christopher Lobban. Both have discovered potentially new species while working as student research fellows under the\u00a0NSF INCLUDES: SEAS Islands Alliance, a program administered at UOG through the Center for Island Sustainability and the Sea Grant program.\u00a0(MARIA SCHEFTER)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Britney Sison, an undergraduate biology and chemistry student at the University of Guam, has discovered five potentially undocumented diatoms in mud samples from the Micronesian Islands of Palau, Yap, Pohnpei, and the Marshall Islands. Her discoveries are in addition to\u00a0two potentially new diatom species found earlier this year\u00a0by UOG student Gabriella Prelosky.<\/p>\n

Diatoms are single-celled algae found in oceans, lakes, and rivers.\u00a0They are primary producers in the food chain as photosynthetic organisms,\u00a0according to\u00a0UOG professor emeritus of Biology Christopher Lobban, who mentors Sison and Prelosky and runs the\u00a0Microscopy Teaching & Research Laboratory on the UOG campus.<\/p>\n

\"Britney
Britney Sison<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sison\u2019s discovery happened during her research fellowship under the\u00a0NSF INCLUDES: SEAS Islands Alliance program, a $10 million initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to broaden participation in STEM fields of students in U.S. territories and affiliated islands.<\/p>\n

\"This
This potentially new diatom species discovered by University of Guam student Britney Sison will be named\u00a0Nitzschia biseriata\u00a0in reference to the double rows of pores on its body. The species will be officially considered new once a paper about the diatom has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication.\u00a0(GUAM NSF EPSCOR AND CHRISTOPHER LOBBAN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Award-winning poster presentation<\/strong><\/p>\n

She presented on her findings at the 26th\u00a0International Diatom Symposium, which brought together hundreds of diatom researchers from around the world for the virtual event from Aug. 23 to 25 out of Yamagata, Japan. Her presentation, titled \u201cNew species of conopeate\u00a0Nitzschia\u00a0in the Pacific Islands,\u201d won third place in the student poster competition.<\/p>\n

The species Sison focused on in her presentation were just five of many potentially new species of diatoms she found while examining microbial mat and mud samples.<\/p>\n

Diatom samples from\u00a0Palau, Yap, Pohnpei, and the Marshall Islands\u00a0were collected and mailed to the UOG lab by interns in the 2021 NSF INCLUDES Bridge-to-Bachelor\u2019s summer program:\u00a0Kebang Ngiraklang, a student at the Palau Community College under the mentorship of\u00a0Vernice Yuki, and Iverson Aliven and Marlin Lee Ling, from the College of Micronesia-FSM\u00a0under the mentorship of Brian Lynch.<\/p>\n

Using the laboratory\u2019s new scanning electron microscope, which was funded by the university\u2019s\u00a0Guam NSF EPSCoR grant, Sison and Lobban were able to examine the samples intensively.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really interesting to study diatoms,\u201d Sison said. \u201cIn the words of Dr. Lobban, it\u2019s like an adult treasure hunt. You never know what you\u2019ll find.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Marlin
Marlin Lee Ling, a student intern of the NSF INCLUDES Bridge-to-Bachelor\u2019s summer program through the College of Micronesia-FSM, photographs a mud sample next to the mangrove he collected it from in Pohnpei. (MARTIN LEE LIN\/GUAM NSF EPSCOR )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Naming the new species\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sison is now in the process of naming the potentially new species. One of them will be named\u00a0Nitzschia biseriata\u00a0because of its unique characteristic of having double rows of pores on its body instead of one.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Two rows\u2019 translated into Latin is \u2018biseriate,\u2019\u201d Lobban said. \u201cIf there\u2019s an obvious characteristic like that, it\u2019s useful to name it that way because then it will tell people something about the species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sison\u2019s findings will officially be new species once a paper about the diatoms has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication.<\/p>\n

Both Sison and Prelosky will present more complete results of their research at the\u00a02021 National Diversity in STEM Digital Conference\u00a0held by the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos\/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science on Oct. 25\u201329.<\/p>\n

The NSF INCLUDES: SEAS Islands Alliance is administered by the\u00a0UOG Center for Island Sustainability\u00a0and\u00a0Sea Grant programs\u00a0in partnership with the School of Education at the University of Guam. UOG faculty members Austin Shelton, Cheryl Sangueza, and Else Demeulenaere serve as investigators of the grant award. NSF INCLUDES collaborates closely with the\u00a0Guam NSF EPSCoR\u00a0program, also funded by the National Science Foundation.\u00a0(UOG)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Britney Sison, an undergraduate biology and chemistry student at the University of Guam, has discovered…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":352374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[445],"class_list":["post-352369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-uog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}