Michael Sieracki
Director,PO Box 380
East Boothbay, ME 04544
U.S.A.
Education
Research Interests
I study the microbial ecology of marine planktonic ecosystems using advanced technology for the automated measurement of these microbial populations and their activity at the single cell level. I have developed methods for accurate detection, counting, and cell measurement for bacteria and protists in natural aquatic ecosystems using image analysis techniques. This technology is used to study the community size and trophic structure in a variety of marine systems, including the North Atlantic spring bloom, the equatorial Pacific, the Sargasso Sea, the Gulf of Maine, and Georges Bank. I have used the combination of flow and imaging cytometry to make new discoveries of the relative biomass of the smallest cells in the Sargasso Sea. We work on new fluorescence techniques for flow and imaging cytometry of plankton. Our cytometry facility serves the science research and education community by providing access to these technologies.
Selected Publications
- Sieracki, M.E. and C.L. Viles. 1992. Distributions and fluorochrome-staining properties of bacteria and sub-micrometer particles in the North Atlantic. Deep-Sea Research. 39:1919-1929.
- Townsend, D.W., M. Keller, M.E. Sieracki, S. G. Ackleson. 1992. Spring phytoplankton blooms in the absence of vertical water column stratification. Nature. 360:59-62.
- Sieracki, M.E., P.G. Verity and D.K. Stoecker. 1993. Plankton community response to sequential silicate and nitrate depletion during the 1989 North Atlantic spring bloom. Deep-Sea Research II. 40:213-225.
- Sieracki, M.E., E.M. Haugen, T.L. Cucci. 1995. Overestimation of heterotrophic bacteria in the Sargasso Sea: direct evidence by flow and imaging cytometry. Deep-Sea Res. 42:1399-1410.
- Sieracki, M.E. and C.L. Viles.1998. Enumeration and sizing of micro-organisms using digital image analysis. In: Schut, F. and M. Wilkinson (eds.) Digital Image Analysis of Microbes: Imaging, Morphometry, Fluorometry and Motility Techniques and Applications. Elsevier Press.
- Sieracki, C.S., M.E. Sieracki, C.S. Yentsch.1998. An imaging-in-flow system for automated analysis of marine microplankton. Mar. Ecol. Progr. Ser. 168:285-296.
- Sieracki, M.E., D. Gifford, S. Gallager, C. Davis.1998. A Chaetoceros socialis Lauder patch on Georges Bank: Distribution, colony structure, and grazing losses. Oceanography. 11:30-35.
- Sieracki, M.E., T.L.Cucci, J. Nicinski.1999. Flow cytometric analysis of 5-cyano-2,3-ditoyl tetrazolium chloride activity of marine bacterioplankton in dilution cultures. Applied and Environmental Microbiology.65(6):2409-2417.
- Cucci, T.L. and M. E. Sieracki 2001 Effects of mismatched refractive indices in aquatic flow cytometry. Cytometry. 44(3).