McBride continues biotechnology, life sciences seminar series

Rob McBride
Rob McBride

"Open Algae Pond Ecology," will be presented by Rob McBride of Sapphire Energy at 4 p.m., Sept. 24 in E103 Beadle Center. The seminar is free and open to the public.

Continuously cultivated open ponds are complex ecosystems that need to be understood and managed as such in order to optimize productivity and stability for long-term operation. McBride will examine the ecology of an open pond and present data using a metagenomic approach to illustrate the dynamic diversity of an open pond used to grow algae in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The data track the changes in identifying regions of eukaryotes and prokaryotes on a biweekly basis over the course of a year. This is the first study to track diversity in an algae pond with this degree of resolution. This work suggests that open ponds could be managed using an ecosystem approach to improve productivity and stability over environmental gradients.

The Beadle Center is located at 1901 Vine Street. The complete schedule of seminars may be found at http://biotech.unl.edu/.

More details at: http://go.unl.edu/inu2