Biology

Yanni Sun: MS student

Yanni is from China and joined the Montoya lab in 2006. She got her Biology bachelor degree at Beijing University in 1998. In 2001, she received her Master’s degree in Marine Biology at the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her thesis work focused on auto-signals in Haematococcus pluvialis (a green fresh water microalga). After graduating, she worked for a ChinESE national program about ecosystem restoration of Lake Taihu. Yanni is interested in nitrogen fixation, an important component of oceanic biological production and CO2 transport from atmosphere to the ocean. She is presently analyzing nutrient distribution in the open ocean and is trying to find areas where nitrogen fixation is most crucial to oceanic food webs. She is also interested in studying the factors that affect nitrogen fixation and how nitrogen fixation affects other marine organisms.