Recent and selected past events
Upcoming events in 2023
Hatzenpichler Environmental Microbiology Lab
99% of microbes cannot be grown in the lab. We seek to understand what this "uncultured majority" is doing and how its activity shapes Earth's biogeochemical cycles and life on our planet.
If you are a highly motivated prospective grad student or postdoc candidate, please contact Roland by email. Prospective graduate students interested in microbiology, astrobiology, ecology, molecular biology, and/or biochemistry can join our lab via the Chem-Biochem or the Microbiology and Cell Biology program.
Nov 28, New preprint of George's Opus Magnum Multicellular magnetotactic bacterial consortia are metabolically differentiated and not clonal. We studied the unique biology of multicellular magnetotactic bacteria, the only example of bacteria without a unicellular stage in their life cycle! PDF
Sep 11, New preprint: Methylotrophic methanogenesis in the Archaeoglobi: Cultivation of Ca. Methanoglobus hypatiae from a Yellowstone hot spring. Congrats Mack on a great piece of work that combines targeted cultivation, growth experiments, fluorescence and electron microscopy, stable isotope tracing, metagenomics, and metatranscriptomics! PDF
Sep 6, New paper on the effects of spartina grass and diesel fuel addition to a salt marsh microbiome's activity is published in Frontiers in Microbiology. Congrats Erin Frates from Jeff Marlow's lab and former postdoc in our lab, Rachel Spietz, who share first authorship! PDF
Jul 20, Roland is elected to co-vice-chair the GRC Applied and Environmental Microbiology meeting in 2025 together with Thulani Makhalanyane. Thulani and Roland will then co-chair the meeting in 2027.
Jul 6, Mackenzie successfully defends her PhD. Congratulations Dr. Lynes!
Jul 1, Anthony is awarded a Montana Space Grant Fellowship
May 9, Roland gets tenure and is promoted to Associate Professor
Mar 22, Mack's and Viola's paper entitled Diversity and function of methyl-coenzyme M reductase- encoding archaea in Yellowstone hot springs revealed by metagenomics and mesocosm experiments is published in ISME Communications.
Together, Mack and Viola demonstrate that Yellowstone National Park is a hitherto overlooked hot spot for microbial methane cycling and that diverse methanogenic archaea, including members of the Archaeoglobaceae, Korchaeia and Verstraetearchaeota are active in methanogenic mesocosms.
Congrats Mack and Viola!
Feb 20, Preprint of Anthony's manuscript Cultivation and visualization of a methanogen of the phylum Thermoproteota goes online (in review).
This study demonstrates, for the first time, that methanogenesis is not confined to the Euryarchaeota. Anthony cultured a thermophilic archaeon from the phylum Thermoproteota (TACK superphylum) from a Yellowstone hot spring and demonstrated that it is a bona fide methanogen. CryoET work with the lab of Martin Pilhofer revealed the methanogen's unique ultrastructure, including cell-to-cell bridges through which cells share their cytoplasm.
Sep 6, New paper in ISME Comm: Culexarchaeia, a novel archaeal class of anaerobic generalists inhabiting geothermal environments. Anthony discovered a new class of thermophilic archaea that, besides being generalists, have the potential for anaerobic methylotrophy. PDF SOI datasets