Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ryan W. Paerl 

Microbial plankton influence the overall flow and availability of nutrients and energy on Earth. They also impact aquatic ecosystem health and nutrient availability to larger aquatic organisms as well as humans. The interplay between plankton and their environment as well as one another is of interest the Paerl Lab (North Carolina State University) particularly: nutrient cycling, cyanobacterial ecology, and novel methods to study plankton. Researchers at the University of Oldenburg have overlapping interests and are similarly active contributors of new knowledge about aquatic plankton and/or nutrient cycling (Drs. Gerrit Wienhausen, Sarahi Garcia, and Heinz Wilkes). Through established (Dr. Wienhausen) and recently forged (Drs. Garcia and Wilkes) communications it is proposed that Dr. Paerl conduct a 3-month sabbatical in summer/fall of 2025 at Oldenburg. The aim of this sabbatical will be to develop mutually beneficial ideas and approaches within the areas of B-vitamin cycling, cyanobacterial diversity, and flow cytometry-based methodologies. The planned output from the proposed sabbatical includes developing DNA sequence analyses to study different suites of B-vitamin and metabolism genes in bacterioplankton, progress ways to better study novel cyanobacteria, as well as establishing and testing flow cytometry cell sorting protocols.