During December, 2017 a massive wildfire, termed the Thomas Fire, in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties burned over 280,000 acres, prompting severe air quality warnings and initiating a series of debris flow events. During this time, our coastal ecosystem was affected by ash deposition as well as mud input (from both debris flows and intentional dumping). These influences on California coastal marine systems may become more important as the severity and occurrence of fire events in California appears to be increasing. However, the impact of these events on our coastal ecosystem is currently unclear. Thus, our lab is investigating the effects of wildfire ash and mud input on our local marine ecosystem with a focus on phytoplankton physiology and community composition. Seasonal experiments have been conducted with natural SBC phytoplankton communities in incubators providing realistic conditions with constant flowing seawater and natural light at UCSB's marine laboratory to investigate how ash or mud-derived nutrient sources affect phytoplankton communities in different seasons (funded by Coastal Fund, UCSB).

Coccolithophores are important contributors to marine calcium carbonate deposits. Studying coccolithophores is challenging because there is significant variability in physiological properties between and even within strains. We are interested in exploring the species concept elucidating the mechanisms controlling the environmental selection of morphological types within the same species bearing different amounts of calcium carbonate.

Lab PI, Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez, and graduate student Tanika Ladd have been working with collaborators at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to learn more about coccolithophore blooms in the Eastern Bering Sea. During blooms of coccolithophores, these microscopic cells in massive numbers can change the color of the water where even satellites and observers from space can see them! Blooms of coccolithophores in the Eastern Bering Sea usually occur in the late summer/early fall, but some years we see very little of the bright turquoise water indicative of these blooms, while in other years, blooms can cover massive areas of the surface ocean. The causes and consequences of these blooms in the Bering Sea are what we hope to learn more about as we collect samples aboard research cruises and observe these blooms from satellite.