Welcome to the Newton Lab at UW-Milwaukee
The organisms that we cannot see, the microorganisms, dominate biodiversity on Earth. Despite the sheer magnitude of these organisms, we know comparatively little about the diversity of microbes in most environments, how those microbes interact with their environment and each other, or how human activities alter microbial assemblages.
In the Newton lab, we study the microbial ecology of aquatic ecosystems. In particular, we focus on how human activities influence the structure and activity of microbial communities. We use a combination of field, laboratory, and computational approaches to explore the distribution and properties of microorganisms across a range of aquatic systems, including: inland lakes, wastewaters, groundwater, and aquaculture systems. In each of these systems, we investigate both microbial communities and the individuals or populations that make up those communities. Much of our work relies upon molecular and genomic techniques to gain access to the diversity of organisms present.
Check out the research page to find out more about our work.
LAB NEWS
LAB TWITTER
RECENT LAB PAPERS
Newton, R.J. & J.S. McClary. 2019. The flux and impact of wastewater infrastructure microorganisms on human and ecosystem health. Current Opinion in Biotechnology. 57:145-150. doi: 10.1016.j.copbio.2019.03.015. Link
Bartelme, R.P., M.C. Smith, O.J. Sepulveda-Villet, & R.J. Newton. 2019. Component microenvironments and system biogeography structure microorganism distributions in recirculating aquaculture and aquaponic systems. mSphere 4: e00143-19. doi: 10.1128/mSphere.00143-19. Link
Roguet, A., A.M. Eren, R.J. Newton, & S.L. McLellan. 2018. Fecal source identification using random forest. Microbiome 6:185. doi: 10.1186/s40168-018-0568-3. Link
Paver, S.F., D. Muratore, R.J. Newton, & M.L. Coleman. 2018. Reevaluating the salty divide: Phylogenetic specificity of transitions between marine and freshwater systems. mSystems 3(6): e00232-18. doi:10.1128/mSystems.00232-18. Link
Rohwer, R.R., J.J. Hamilton, R.J. Newton, & K.D. McMahon. 2018. TaxAss: Leveraging a custom database achieves fine-scale taxonomic resolution. mSphere 3:e00327-18. doi: 10.1128/mSphere.00327-18. Link
Bartelme, R.P., P. Barbier, R.S. Lipscomb, S.E. LaPatra, R.J. Newton, J.P. Evenhuis, M.J. McBride. 2018. Draft genome sequence of the fish pathogen Flavobacterium columnare strain MS-FC-4. Genome Announcements 6:20 e00429-18. doi: 10.1128/genomeA.00429-18. Link
Bartelme, R.P., B.O. Oyserman, J.E. Blom, O.J. Sepulveda-Villet, R.J Newton. 2018. Stripping away the soil: Plant growth promoting microbiology opportunities in aquaponics. Frontiers in Microbiology 9:8 doi: 10.3389/fmicb/2018.00008. Link
Bartelme, R.P., S.L. McLellan, R.J. Newton. 2017. Freshwater recirculating aquaculture system operations drive biofilter bacterial community shifts around a stable nitrifying consortium of ammonia-oxidizing Archaea and comammox Nitrospira. Frontiers in Microbiology 8:101 doi 10.3389/fmicb.2017.00101. Link
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science...”
Albert Einstein
