Quantitative Marine Ecology Lab

Wilton Burns

PhD Student

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Wilton Burns (she/her/hers) is a Marine Biology PhD student. She uses long-term monitoring, high-frequency water quality sensors, and satellite images to evaluate the drivers of nutrient and cyanobacteria blooms in freshwater and coastal aquatic ecosystems.

Prior to starting her PhD at UNH, Wilton was a research assistant at the University of Vermont. She studied nutrient and cyanobacteria bloom dynamics two eutrophic bays in Lake Champlain. In 2017, she obtained a Master’s in Oceanography in the Ocean Process Analysis Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. She investigated the metabolic response of marine phytoplankton and bacteria to increases in fine-scale turbulence in the photic zone. She received a B.S. in Environmental Sciences and Minor in Marine Science from the University of North Carolina.

  1. Burns, W. G., Marchetti, A., and Ziervogel, K. 2019. Enhanced formation of transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) under turbulence during phytoplankton growth. Journal of Plankton Research. 41(3): 349 – 361.
  2. Cohen, N. R., Ellis, K. A., Burns, W. G., Lampe, R. H., Schuback, N., Johnson, Z., Sañudo-Wilhelmy, S., Marchetti, A. 2017. Iron and vitamin interactions in marine diatom isolates and natural assemblages of the Northeast Pacific Ocean. Limnology and Oceanography. 62: 2076–2096.
  3. Fenton, T., Riedle, L., Burns, W.G., Love, E., McKenzie, M.K., Kamens, R., and Gheewala, S. 2014. Transportation Fuels from Algae: Addressing Bangkok’s Petroleum Needs. Journal of Sustainable Energy & Environment. 5: 53-60.