Dr. Michael J. Sullivan
Office: 850- 697-8550
Fax: 850-697-3822
E-mail: mjsulliv@fsu.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Scholar Scientist
Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory
3618 Highway 98
St. Teresa, FL 32358
Ph.D., University of Delaware, 1974
Editor, Diatom Research (1990-2003)

RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS

The consistent theme of my research program has been to determine the functional roles of benthic microalgae in coastal food webs. Our society benefits greatly from the many aspects of commercial and recreational fishing so we must understand the processes and factors that control the production of shellfish and finfish in our coastal waters. Marine coastal food webs depend on production of organic matter production by chlorophyll a-containing organisms (i.e., the primary producers) through their photosynthetic activities. This is where it all begins. For many years the paradigm was that coastal food webs were fueled by the primary production of phytoplankton in the water column and the detritus produced by vascular plants such as salt-marsh grasses, sedges, and rushes and subtidal seagrasses such as shoal grass, manatee grass, and turtle grass. My graduate students and I sought to challenge this paradigm by focusing on the role that the ubiquitous and abundant benthic microalgae play in supporting food webs. We hypothesized that their role was significant and that a major component of the base of the food web had been ignored. To this end we measured the primary production rates of benthic microalgae in salt marshes and in nearshore seagrass beds and found them to be substantial. We then turned to the new technology of stable-isotope analysis and were the first lab to use the triple-isotope approach (i.e., stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur) to demonstrate the unequivocal importance of benthic microalgae to food webs in salt-marsh and sea-grass systems, two habitats of unquestioned nursery (i.e., food and refuge) importance for species sought by commercial and recreational fisherman. A major threat to coastal ecosystems is nitrogen produced by the ever increasing development of the shoreline by human populations, which enters our coastal waters at unprecedented rates and can have deleterious effects on the living coastal resources so prized by commercial and recreational fisherman. We have sought to elucidate the effects of increased nitrogen concentrations on the primary production rates of benthic microalgae by simulating eutrophication in relatively pristine habitats and measuring the primary production rates of seagrasses and their epiphytic algae and those microalgae resident in the sediments in which the seagrasses are rooted. Results have been somewhat equivocal in that long-term enrichment has resulted in significant increases in benthic microalgal production and biomass but short-term enrichments have not. The former would be expected in those systems that are not pulsed.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECT

Our current funded research employs a methods to examine the effects of nutrient enrichment on food webs in seagrass systems by incorporating a stable-isotope tracer (fertilizer either depleted or enriched in 15N) as part of the enrichments. We were the first lab to label primary producers in a seagrass system with stable isotope tracers, and this novel methodology offers great promise for better understanding of the flow of organic matter in coastal food webs as well as the residency within and movement among sea-grass beds by commercially important consumer species. In an experiment conducted in summer of 2005, we were able to demonstrate significant uptake of the label by seagrass roots and rhizomes, epiphytic algae, and sediment microalgae only one day after the tracer had been placed in seagrass beds. An added benefit of tracer methodology is therefore to study very short-term effects of eutrophication. The number of days needed for the label to show up in animals is yet to be determined.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Sullivan, M.J., and F.C. Daiber. 1974. Response in production of cord grass, Spartina alterniflora, to inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer. Chesapeake Sci. 15:121-123.
Sullivan, M.J., and F.C. Daiber. 1975. Light, nitrogen, and phosphorus limitation of edaphic algae in a Delaware salt marsh. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 18:79-88.
Sullivan, M.J. 1983. Transfer of the marine fossil diatom Cosmiodiscus beaufortianus Hust. to the genus Actinocyclus. Phycologia 22:277-284.
Sullivan, M.J., and C.A. Moncreiff. 1988. Primary production of edaphic algal communities in a Mississippi salt marsh. J. Phycoloogy 24:49-58.
Sullivan, M.J., and C.A. Moncreiff. 1988. A multivariate analysis of diatom community structure and distribution in a Mississippi salt marsh. Botanica Marina 31:93-99.
Shaffer, G.P., and M.J. Sullivan. 1988. Water column productivity attributable to displaced benthic diatoms in well-mixed shallow estuaries. J. Phycology 24:132-140.
Sullivan, M.J., and C.A. Moncreiff. 1990. Edaphic algae are an important component of salt marsh food-webs: evidence from multiple stable isotope analyses. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 62:149-159.
Moncreiff, C.A., M.J. Sullivan. and A.E. Daehnick. 1992. Primary production dynamics in seagrass beds of Mississippi Sound: the contributions of seagrass, epiphytic algae, sand microflora, and phytoplankton. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 87:161-171.
Mallin, M.A., J.M. Burkholder and M.J. Sullivan.. 1992. Algal contributions to coastal fishery yield. Trans. American Fisheries Society 121:691-695.
Sullivan, M.J. 1997. Porguenia peruviana gen. et sp. nov., a marine centric diatom with an unusual ocellus. J. Phycology 33:699-705.
Wear, D.J., M.J. Sullivan., A.D. Moore and D.F. Millie. 1999. Effects of water-column enrichment on the production dynamics of three seagrass species and their epiphytic algae. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 179:201-213.
Sullivan, M.J. and C.A. Currin. 2000. Community structure and functional dynamics of benthic microalgae in salt marshes. In M.P. Weinstein and D.A. Kreeger (eds) Concepts and Controversies in Tidal Marsh Ecology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 81-106.
Moncreiff, C.A. and M.J. Sullivan.. 2001. Trophic importance of epiphytic algae in subtropical seagrass beds: evidence from stable isotope analyses. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.215:93-106.
Mutchler, T.R., M.J. Sullivan. and B. Fry. 2004. Potential of 14N isotope enrichment to resolve ambiguities in coastal trophic relationships. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 266:27-33.
Witkowski, A., Bogaczewicz-Adamczak, B., Sullivan, M.J., M. Bak, Rhiel, E., Ribeira, L. & Richard, P. Navicula spartinetensis Sullivan et Reimer, a little-known diatom (Bacillariophyceae) species. Notes on its ecology and distribution. Under review by the European Journal of Phycology