Publications by authors named "Amanda M Cockshutt"

Prochlorococcus marinus, the smallest picocyanobacterium, comprises multiple clades occupying distinct niches, currently across tropical and sub-tropical oligotrophic ocean regions, including Oxygen Minimum Zones. Ocean warming may open growth-permissive temperatures in new, poleward photic regimes, along with expanded Oxygen Minimum Zones. We used ocean metaproteomic data on current Prochlorococcus marinus niches, to guide testing of Prochlorococcus marinus growth across a matrix of peak irradiances, photoperiods, spectral bands and dissolved oxygen.

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Picocyanobacteria are the numerically dominant photoautotrophs of the oligotrophic regions of Earth's oceans. These organisms are characterized by their small size and highly reduced genomes. Strains partition to different light intensity and nutrient level niches, with differing photosynthetic apparatus stoichiometry, light harvesting machinery and susceptibility to photoinactivation.

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Micromonas strains of small prasinophyte green algae are found throughout the world's oceans, exploiting widely different niches. We grew arctic and temperate strains of Micromonas and compared their susceptibilities to photoinactivation of Photosystem II, their counteracting Photosystem II repair capacities, their Photosystem II content, and their induction and relaxation of non-photochemical quenching. In the arctic strain Micromonas NCMA 2099, the cellular content of active Photosystem II represents only about 50 % of total Photosystem II protein, as a slow rate constant for clearance of PsbA protein limits instantaneous repair.

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When growth irradiance changes, phytoplankton acclimates by changing allocations to cellular components to re-balance their capacity to absorb photons versus their capacity to use the electrons from the oxidation of water at photosystem II. Published changes in the cellular allocations resulting from photoacclimation across algal groups highlight that algae adopt different strategies. We examined the photoacclimation of the photosynthetic apparatus of six marine phytoplankters under near-natural diel irradiance patterns.

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Marine Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus are picocyanobacteria predominating in subtropical, oligotrophic marine environments, a niche predicted to expand with climate change. When grown under common low light conditions Synechococcus WH 8102 and Prochlorococcus MED 4 show similar Cytochrome b6f and Photosystem I contents normalized to Photosystem II content, while Prochlorococcus MIT 9313 has twice the Cytochrome b6f content and four times the Photosystem I content of the other strains. Interestingly, the Prochlorococcus strains contain only one third to one half of the RUBISCO catalytic subunits compared to the marine Synechococcus strain.

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A large fraction of any bacterial genome consists of hypothetical protein-coding open reading frames (ORFs). While most of these ORFs are present only in one or a few sequenced genomes, a few are conserved, often across large phylogenetic distances. Such conservation provides clues to likely uncharacterized cellular functions that need to be elucidated.

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Iron is an essential component in many protein complexes involved in photosynthesis, but environmental iron availability is often low as oxidized forms of iron are insoluble in water. To adjust to low environmental iron levels, cyanobacteria undergo numerous changes to balance their iron budget and mitigate the physiological effects of iron depletion. We investigated changes in key protein abundances and photophysiological parameters in the model cyanobacteria Synechococcus PCC 7942 and Synechocystis PCC 6803 over a 120 hour time course of iron deprivation.

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All oxygenic photoautotrophs suffer photoinactivation of their Photosystem II complexes, at a rate driven by the instantaneous light level. To maintain photosynthesis, PsbA subunits are proteolytically removed from photoinactivated Photosystem II complexes, primarily by a membrane-bound FtsH protease. Diatoms thrive in environments with fluctuating light, such as coastal regions, in part because they enjoy a low susceptibility to photoinactivation of Photosystem II.

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DNA content and cell volume have both been hypothesized as controls on metabolic rate and other physiological traits. We use cultures of two cryptic species of Ditylum brightwellii (West) Grunow with an approximately two-fold difference in genome size and a small and large culture of each clone obtained by isolating small and large cells to compare the physiological consequences of size changes due to differences in DNA content and reduction in cell size following many generations of asexual reproduction. We quantified the growth rate, the functional absorption cross-section of photosystem II (PSII), susceptibility of PSII to photoinactivation, PSII repair capacity, and PSII reaction center proteins D1 (PsbA) and D2 (PsbD) for each culture at a range of irradiances.

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Iron availability limits primary production in >30% of the world's oceans; hence phytoplankton have developed acclimation strategies. In particular, cyanobacteria express IsiA (iron-stress-induced) under iron stress, which can become the most abundant chl-binding protein in the cell. Within iron-limited oceanic regions with significant cyanobacterial biomass, IsiA may represent a significant fraction of the total chl.

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Diatoms host chlorophyll a/c chloroplasts distinct from green chloroplasts. Diatoms now dominate the eukaryotic oceanic phytoplankton, in part through their exploitation of environments with variable light. We grew marine diatoms across a range of temperatures and then analyzed their PSII function and subunit turnover during an increase in light to mimic an upward mixing event.

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In cyanobacteria, the D1 protein of photosystem II (PSII) is encoded by the psbA multigene family. In most freshwater strains, a D1:1 isoform of this protein is exchanged for a D1:2 isoform in response to various stresses, thereby altering PSII photochemistry. To investigate PSII responses to stress in marine Synechococcus, we acclimated cultures of the WH7803 strain to different growth irradiances and then exposed them to high light (HL) or ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

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Cyanobacteria cope with UVB induced photoinhibition of Photosystem II by regulating multiple psbA genes to boost the expression of D1 protein (in Synechocystis sp. PCC6803), or to exchange the constitutive D1:1 protein to an alternate D1:2 isoform (in Synechococcus sp. PCC7942).

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Synechococcus elongatus strain PCC7942 cells were grown in high or low environmental concentrations of inorganic C (high-C(i), low-C(i)) and subjected to a light shift from 50 micromol m(-2) s(-1) to 500 micromol m(-2) s(-1). We quantified photosynthetic reductant (O(2) evolution) and molar cellular contents of phycobilisomes, PSII, PSI, and ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase (Rubisco) through the light shift. Upon the increase in light, small initial relative decreases in phycobilisomes per cell resulted from near cessation of phycobilisome synthesis and their dilution into daughter cells.

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Traditional microscope-based estimates of species richness of aquatic hyphomycetes depend upon the ability of the species in the community to sporulate. Molecular techniques which detect DNA from all stages of the life cycle could potentially circumvent the problems associated with traditional methods. Leaf disks from red maple, alder, linden, beech, and oak as well as birch wood sticks were submerged in a stream in southeastern Canada for 7, 14, and 28 days.

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