Molecular Ecology of Marine Phytoplankton 

Welcome to the home page of the Rocap lab, located in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington. I am a marine microbial ecologist interested in the evolution and ecology of the oceans smallest and most abundant phototrophs - the cyanobacteria. We use a variety of approaches in the lab; physiological (growth experiments and pigment analyses), molecular (quantitative PCR, sequencing and expression assays) and computational (phylogenetic analyses, comparative genomics). We are also part of the Marine Molecular Biotechnology Lab, a facility within the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences at UW. Researchers at MMBL are a diverse group, united by the use of molecular techniques to address ecological questions in aquatic environments.