Hannah Dawson (Oceanography) was recently awarded the Hall Conservation Genetics Research Fund from the UW College of the Environment for her project “Characterizing potential drivers of organic matter turnover in changing polar oceans: first measures of RNA viruses in sea ice”.
This award will fund the sequencing of RNA virus metagenomes from Antarctic sea ice samples, with a particular focus on those that infect eukaryotic primary producers. This will provide the first insight into the presence and biodiversity of RNA viruses in sea ice and the potential for these entities to regulate microbial dynamics and biogeochemical cycling in rapidly changing polar oceans.