Weekly Flow: an Effective Organizational Tool for Structuring Biology Courses and Supporting Student Learning.

Here, I describe a "Weekly Flow" strategy for structuring college biology courses and making organization transparent to students. Building a course around an established weekly schedule that consists of the same, or similar, elements (for example, assessments, readings, assignment types, and/or class activities) provides structure and predictability that helps students with time management and therefore enables them to engage more deeply with the course material. This flexible framework can be applied in a wide variety of course types and teaching modalities.

Co-registered Geochemistry and Metatranscriptomics Reveal Unexpected Distributions of Microbial Activity within a Hydrothermal Vent Field.

Despite years of research into microbial activity at diffuse flow hydrothermal vents, the extent of microbial niche diversity in these settings is not known. To better understand the relationship between microbial activity and the associated physical and geochemical conditions, we obtained co-registered metatranscriptomic and geochemical data from a variety of different fluid regimes within the ASHES vent field on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. Microbial activity in the majority of the cool and warm fluids sampled was dominated by a population of (likely sulfur oxidizers) that appear to thrive in a variety of chemically distinct fluids.

Characterizing the distribution and rates of microbial sulfate reduction at Middle Valley hydrothermal vents.

Few studies have directly measured sulfate reduction at hydrothermal vents, and relatively little is known about how environmental or ecological factors influence rates of sulfate reduction in vent environments. A better understanding of microbially mediated sulfate reduction in hydrothermal vent ecosystems may be achieved by integrating ecological and geochemical data with metabolic rate measurements. Here we present rates of microbially mediated sulfate reduction from three distinct hydrothermal vents in the Middle Valley vent field along the Juan de Fuca Ridge, as well as assessments of bacterial and archaeal diversity, estimates of total biomass and the abundance of functional genes related to sulfate reduction, and in situ geochemistry.