The laboratory of Pia Moisander at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (Department of Biology) investigates the ecology of microbial communities in marine and freshwater environments. The research focuses on the ecology of microbial communities that play important roles in the nitrogen cycle, such as nitrogen-fixing and nitrate reducing bacteria and archaea. We are investigating microbiomes of small marine planktonic crustaceans (copepods), and microbial dynamics in marine biofilms. Our approaches include laboratory and field experiments, culture isolation and cultivation, molecular and genomic investigations of communities and isolates, and measurements of physiological rates and environmental variables.