Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences
71 Dudley Road, Cook Campus
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Room 318E
Research Interest
Microbes mediate the flow of energy and matter through the Earth system. In the ocean, diverse microbial communities repartition key elements and their isotopes among different chemical phases, altering the fate and fluxes of this material. In so doing, these tiny wonders profoundly influence Earth’s geochemical cycles and climate.
My research weds field-based observations, laboratory experiments and computational methods to investigate interactions between marine microbes and their environment, and the imprints these dynamics impart. One arm of my current work leverages recent AI-driven advances in the field of structural biology to investigate microbe-metal interactions, including how cells alter the chemical speciation and isotopic fractionation of bioessential metals in the ocean. Another arm focuses on understanding how the biogeochemical behavior (particularly N cycling) of phytoplankton change with their physico-chemical environment. Ultimately, my research is motivated by a desire to understand the feedbacks between the biosphere and geosphere that define the evolution and future of Earth’s habitability.
Publications
Selden, C.R.*, Einarsson, D.*, Lowry, K., Crider, K., Pickart, R., Ashjian, C. & Chappell, P. D. (2022). Coastal upwelling enhances abundance of a symbiotic diazotroph (UCYN-A) and its host in
the Arctic Ocean. Frontiers in Marine Sciences, 9:877562. http://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.877562
Confesor, K., Selden, C.R., Powell, K., Donahue, L., Mellett, T., Caprara, S., Knapp, A., Buck, K., Chappell, P.D. (2022). Defining the realized niche of two major clades of Trichodesmium: A study on
the West Florida Shelf. Frontiers in Marine Science, 9:821655. http://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.821655
Ghosh, A., Robinson, A., Chiapella, A., Bertolet, B., Selden, C.R., Perry, D., Reich, H., Oleksy, I., Isanta-Navarro, J., Aho, K., Ganley, L., Soares, L., Heffernan, L., Peleg, O., Ramulifho, P., Thibodeau,
P., Reis, P., Sasaki, M., Ray, N., Maher, R., LaBrie, R., Spier, S. (2022). Eco-DAS: an effective platform for developing professional collaborations among early career aquatic scientists. Limnology & Oceanography Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1002/lob.10485
Amergian, K.E., Beckwith, S., Gfatter, G., Selden, C.R. & Hallock, P. (2022). Can areas of high alkalinity fresh-water discharge provide a potential refugia for marine calcifying organisms? Journal of Foraminiferal Research, 52(1), p. 60-73. https://doi.org/10.2113/gsjfr.52.1.60
Selden, C.R., Mulholland, M., Bernhardt, P., Widner, B. & Jayakumar, A. (2021). Towards resolving disparate accounts of the extent and magnitude of nitrogen fixation in the Eastern Tropical South Pacific oxygen deficient zone. Limnology & Oceanography, 66(5): p. 1950-1960. https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.11735
Macías-Tapia, A., Mulholland, M.R., Selden, C.R., Loftis, D. & Bernhardt, P. (2021). Effects of tidal flooding on estuarine biogeochemistry: quantifying flood-driven nitrogen inputs in a lower Chesapeake Bay sub-tributary. Water Research, 201, 117329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2021.117329
Oliver, H., Zhang, W.G., Smith, W.O., Alatalo, P., Chappell, P.D., Hirzel, A., Selden, C.R., Sosik, H.M., Stanley, R.H.R., Zhu, Y., & McGillicuddy, D.J. (2021). Diatom hotspots driven by western
boundary current instability. Geophysical Research Letters, 48(11): e2020GL091943. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL091943
Selden, C.R., Chappell, P.D., Clayton, S., Macías-Tapia, A., Bernhardt, P. & Mulholland, M. (2021). A coastal N2 fixation hotspot at the Cape Hatteras front: Elucidating spatial heterogeneity in diazotroph activity via supervised machine learning. Limnology & Oceanography, 66(5), p. 1832-1849. https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.11727
White, A., Granger, J., Selden, C.R., Gradoville, M.R., Potts, L., Bourbonnais, A., Fulweiler, R.W., Knapp, A., Mohr, W., Moisander, P., Tobias, C., Wilson, S., Benavides, M., Bonnet, S., Mulholland, M.
& Chang, B. (2020). A critical review of the 15N2 tracer method to measure diazotrophic production in pelagic ecosystems. Limnology & Oceanography: Methods, 18(4), p. 129-147. https://doi.org/10.1002/lom3/10353
Selden, C.R., Mulholland, M., Bernhardt, P., Widner, B., Macías-Tapia, A., Ji, Q. & Jayakumar, A. (2019). Dinitrogen fixation across physico-chemical gradients of the Eastern Tropical North Pacific oxygen deficient zone. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 33(9), p. 1187-1202. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GB006242
Mulholland, M., Bernhardt, P., Widner, B., Selden, C.R., Chappell, D., Mannino, A., Hyde, K. & Clayton, S. (2019). High rates of N2 fixation in temperate, western North Atlantic coastal waters
expands the realm of marine N2 fixation. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 33(7), p. 826-840. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GB006130
