Dr. Connor Love, Professorial Lecturer, GW Department of Chemistry
Tracing molecules through marine ecosystems: from organisms to global cycles
The Department of Chemistry is pleased to present Professor Connor Love
Organic molecules are created, moved and consumed as they flow through marine ecosystems, with the dynamics of this flow underpinning ecosystem function and resilience in a rapidly changing ocean. Importantly, we can trace this flow of organic molecules through ocean ecosystems by the patterns it leaves behind in biological tissues using lipid and amino acid profiles and bulk and compound-specific stable isotope ratios. Using both targeted experimentation and high resolution environmental sampling, I will walk you through a variety of projects in vastly different regions of the ocean all tied by this molecular perspective. First, I will walk through how the most numerically abundant organism on earth, a cyanobacteria by the name of Prochlorococcus, powers a hidden geochemical cycle in the sunlit surface ocean that dwarfs all other natural and anthropogenic oil inputs to the ocean and imbues the ocean with a limited capacity to catabolize hydrocarbons from anthropogenic oil spills. Second, I will take you to the coral reefs of the Red Sea and show you how selective nutrient incorporation of symbiotic reef-building corals has led ocean researchers to underestimate the biochemical connectivity between open ocean and reef ecosystems and its importance in reef survivorship. Lastly, I will walk you through an ongoing project on the effects of water hypoxia on deep sea fish in Norwegian Fjords as well as synergistic science and design projects with the Rhode Island School of Design.
BIO
Connor Love is a chemical and biological oceanographer who uses analytical chemistry to disentangle complex processes in the marine environment, from organismal physiology to global biogeochemical cycles. He received his Bachelors of Science in Biochemistry and his PhD in Chemical and Biological Oceanography both from the University of California, Santa Barbara. More recently, he was awarded a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to study ocean-reef connectivity in the central Red Sea through the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. Currently, Connor is an adjunct faculty lecturer at George Washington University, Department of Chemistry.