Publications
2019 Stamatakis K, P-I Broussos, A Panagiotopoulou, RJ Gast, M Pelecanou and GC Papageorgiou. Light-adaptive state transitions in the Ross Sea haptophyte Phaeocystis antarctica and in dinoflagellate cells hosting kleptoplasts derived from it. BBA – Bioenergetics 1860:102-110.
2018 Gomez F and RJ Gast. The dinoflagellates Amyloodinium and Ichthyodinium (Dinophyceae), parasites on marine fishes in the South Atlantic Ocean. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 131:29-37. doi.org/10.3354/dao03274
2018 McKie-Krisberg Z, RW Sanders and RJ Gast. Evaluation of mixotrophy-associated gene expression in two species of Polar marine algae. Frontiers in Marine Science. doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00273
2018 Beinart RA*, J Rotterova, I Cepicka, RJ Gast and VP Edgcomb. The genome of an endosymbiotic methanogen is very similar to those of its free-living relatives. Environmental Microbiology 10.1111/1462-2920.14279
2018 Gast RJ, SA Fay and RW Sanders. Mixotrophic Activity and Diversity of Antarctic Marine Protists in Austral Summer. Frontiers in Marine Science doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00013.
2017 Gast RJ. Centrohelida and other heliozoan-like protists. In Handbook of the Protists 2nd Edition, pp. 955-971. Eds. JM Archbald, AGB Simpson & CH Slamovitz, Springer International Publishing.
2017 Caron DA, RJ Gast and M-E Garneau. Sea ice as a habitat for micrograzers. In Sea Ice 3rd Edition, pp. 370-393. Ed DN Thomas, Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
2017 Stamatakis, K, D Vayenos, C Kotakis, RJ Gast and GC Papagerorgiou. The extraordinary longevity of kleptoplasts derived from the Ross Sea haptophyte Phaeocystis antarctica within dinoflagellate host cells relates to the diminished role of the oxygen-evolving Photosystem II and to supplementary light harvesting by mycosporine-like amino acids. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1858:189-195.
2015 SK Hu, Z Liu, AAY Lie, PD Countway, DY Kim, AC Jones, RJ Gast, SC Cary, EB Sherr, BF Sherr and DA Caron. Estimating protistan diversity using high-throughput sequencing. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology 62(5):688-693.
2015 Gast, RJ, S Elgar and B Raubenheimer. Observations of transport of bacterial-like microspheres through beach sand. Continental Shelf Research 97(1):1-6.
2015 Halliday, E, DK Ralston and RJ Gast. Contribution of sand associated enterococci to dry weather water quality. Environmental Science and Technology 49(1):451-458.
2015 McKie-Krisberg, Z, RJ Gast and RW Sanders. Physiological responses of three species of Antarctic mixotrophic phytoflagellates to changes in light and dissolved nutrients: insights into survival in an extreme environment. Microbial Ecology doi: 10.1007/s00248-014-0543-x.
2014 Halliday, E, SL McLellan, LA Amaral-Zettler, ML Sogin and RJ Gast. Comparison of bacterial communities in sands and water at beaches with bacterial water quality violations. PlosOne 9:e90815.
2014 Sellers, CG, RJ Gast and RW Sanders. Selective feeding and foreign plastid retention in an Antarctic dinoflagellate. Journal of Phycology 50:1081-1088
2014 Gast, RJ, Z McKie-Krisberg, SA Fay, JM Rose, and RW Sanders. Antarctic mixotrophic protist abundances by microscopy and molecular methods. FEMS Microbiology Ecology DOI: 10.1111/1574-6941.12334
2014 Rengefors, K, R Logares, J Laybourn-Parry, RJ Gast. Evidence of concurrent local adaptation and high phenotypic plasticity in a polar microeukaryote. Environmental Microbiology DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.12571
2014 Halliday E, S McClellan, L Amaral-Zettler, M Sogin, and RJ Gast. Comparison of bacterial communities in sands and water at beaches with bacterial water quality violations. PLOSOne DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0090815
2014 Lie, A, Z Liu, S Hu, A Jones, D Kim, P Countway, L Amaral-Zettler, C Cary, E Sherr, B Sherr, RJ Gast and D Caron. Investigating microbial eukaryotic diversity from a global census: Insights from a comparison of pyrotag and full-length sequences of 18S rRNA gene sequences. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 80:4363-4373.
2013 Fay, SA, RJ Gast, & RW Sanders. Linking bacterivory and phyletic diversity of protists with a marker gene survey and experimental feeding with BrdU-labeled bacteria. Aquatic Microbial Ecology 71:141-153.
2013 Rose, JM, E Fitzpatrick, A Wang, RJ Gast and DA Caron. Low temperature constrains growth rate but not short-term ingestion rates of Antarctic ciliates. Polar Biology 36:645-659.
2012 Sanders, RW and RJ Gast. Bacterivory by phototrophic picoplankton and nanoplankton in Arctic waters. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 82(2):242-253.
2012 First, MR Park, NY, Berrang, ME, Meinersmann, RJ, Bernhard, JM, Gast, RJ and JT Hollibaugh. Ciliate ingestion and digestion: Flow cytometric measurements and regrowth of a digestion-resistant Campylobacter jejuni. 2012. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology 59:12-19.
2011 Kim DY, PD Countway, RJ Gast and DA Caron. Rapid shifts in the structure and composition of a protistan assemblage during bottle incubations affect estimates of total protistan species richness. Microbial Ecology 62(2):383-398.
2011 Gast RJ, L Gorrell, B Raubenheimer and S Elgar. Impact of erosion and accretion on the distribution of enterococci in beach sands. Continental Shelf Research 31:1475-61.
2011 Halliday, E and RJ Gast. Bacteria in beach sand: An emerging challenge in protecting coastal water quality and bather health. Environmental Science and Technology 45(2):370-79.
2011 Gast, RJ, DM Moran, MR Dennett, W Wurtsbaugh and L Amaral-Zettler. Amoebae and Legionella pneumophila in coastal marine environments. Journal of Water and Health 9(1):37-52.
2011 Edgcomb VP, D Beaudoin, RJ Gast, JF Biddle and A Teske. Marine Subsurface Eukaryotes: The Fungal Majority. Environmental Microbiology 13(1):172-183.
2010 Schnetzer A, SD Moorthi, PD Countway, RJ Gast, IJ Gilg and DA Caron. Depth matters: Microbial eukaryote diversity and community structure in the eastern North Pacific revealed through environmental gene libraries. Deep-Sea Research Part I 58(1): 16-26.
2010 Halliday, E JF Griffith, and RJ Gast. Use of an exogenous plasmid standard and quantitative PCR to monitor spatial and temporal distribution of Enterococcus spp. in beach sands Limnology & Oceanography Methods 8:146-154.
2009 Gast, RJ, RW Sanders and DA Caron. Ecological strategies of protists and their symbiotic relationships with prokaryotic microbes Trends in Microbiology 17:563-569.
2009 Moorthi, S, DA Caron, RJ Gast and RW Sanders. Mixotrophy: a widespread and important ecological strategy or planktonic and sea-ice nanoflagellates in the Ross Sea, Antarctica Aquatic Microbial Ecology 54:269-277.
2009 Caron, DA, PD Countway, P Savai, RJ Gast, A Schnetzer, SD Moorthi, MR Dennett, DM Moran and AC Jones Defining DNA-based operational taxonomic units for microbial eukaryote ecology Applied and Environmental Microbiology Vol. 75, No. 18, aem0298-09.
2009 Rose JM, Gast RJ, Bogomolni A, Ellis J, Lentell B, Touhey K and M Moore. Occurrence and patterns of antibiotic resistance in vertebrates off the Northeastern United States coast. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 67:421–431.
2008 Amaral-Zettler LA, Rocca JD, Lamotagne MC, Dennett MR and RJ Gast. Changes in microbial community structure in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Environmental Science and Technology 42:9072-9078.
2008 Stewart JR, Gast RJ, Fujioka RS, Solo-Gabriele HM, Meschke S, Amaral-Zettler LA, Del Castillo E, Polz MF, Collier TK, Strom MS, Sinigalliano CD, Moeller PDR and AF Holland. The coastal environment and human health: Microbial indicators, pathogens, sentinels and reservoirs. Environmental Health 7(Suppl 2):S3 doi:10.1186/1478-069X-7-S2-S3.
2008 Kite-Powell, HL, Fleming, LE, Backer, LC, Faustman, E, Hoagland, P, Tsuchiya, A, Younglove, L, Wilcox, BA, and Gast, RJ. Linking the oceans to public health: current efforts and future directions. Environmental Health 7(Suppl 2):S6 doi:10.1186/1476-069X-7-S2-S6.
2008 Gast RJ, Moran DM, Audemard C, Lyons MM, Defaveri J, Reece KS, Leavitt D and R Smolowitz. Environmental distribution and persistence of Quahog Parasite Unknown (QPX). Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 81(3):219-229.
2008 Bogomolni A, Gast RJ, Ellis J, Dennett M, Pugliares K and M Moore. Vectors or Victims? Marine vertebrate zoonoses from coastal waters of the Northwest Atlantic. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 81(1):13-38.
2008 Lasek-Nesselquist E, Bogomolni A, Gast RJ, Mark Welch D, Ellis J, Sogin ML and M Moore. Molecular characterization of Giardia intestinalis haplotypes in marine animals: variation and zoonotic potential. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 81(1):39-51.
2008 Caron, DA and RJ Gast. The diversity of free-living protists: seen and unseen, cultured and uncultured. In Accessing Uncultured Microorganisms: From the Environment to Organisms and Genomes and Back. Ed K Zengler ASM Press, Washington, DC, 320 pp.
2007 Caraguel, CGB, BM Depres, CJ O’Kelly, S Frasca Jr., RJ Gast, RJ Cawthorn and SJ Greenwood. Microheterogeneity and coevolution: an examination of the relationship between Neoparamoeba pemaquidensis and its prokinetoplastid endosymbiont. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology 54(5):418-426.
2007 Shimeta, J, RJ Gast and JM Rose. Community structure of marine sedimentary protists in relation to flow and grain size. Aquatic Microbial Ecology 48:91-104.
2007 Sinigalliano, CD, Gidley, ML, Shibata, T, Whitman, D, Dixon, TH, Laws, E, Hou, A, Bachoon, D, Brand, L, Amaral-Zettler, L, Gast R, Steward, GF, Nigro, OD, Fujioka, R, Betancourt, WQ, Vithanage, G, Mathews, J, Fleming, LE and HM Solo-Gabriele. Impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the microbial landscape of the New Orleans area PNAS 104: 9029-9034.
2007 Moran, DM, OR Anderson, MR Dennett, DA Caron and RJ Gast. A description of seven Antarctic marine Gymnamoebae including a new subspecies, two new species and a new genus: Neoparamoeba aestuarina antarctica n. subsp., Platyamoeba oblongata n. sp., Platyamoeba contorta n. sp. and Vermistella antarctica n. gen. n. sp. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology 54(2):169-183.
2007 Countway, PD, RJ Gast, MR Dennett, P Savai, JM Rose and DA Caron. Distinct protistan assemblages characterize the euphotic zone and deep sea (2500m) of the western North Atlantic (Sargasso Sea and Gulf Stream). Environmental Microbiology 9(5):1219-1232.
2007 Gast, RJ, DM Moran, MR Dennett and DA Caron. Kleptoplasty in an Antarctic dinoflagellate; caught in evolutionary transition? Environmental Microbiology 9(1):39-45.
2006 Gast, RJ, E Cushman*, DM Moran, K Uhlingher, D Leavitt and R Smolowitz. DGGE-based method for detection of Quahog Parasite Unknown (QPX). Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 70:115-122.
2006 Gast, RJ. Molecular Phylogeny of a Dinoflagellate Parasite from the Solitary Radiolarian, Thalassicolla nucleate. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology 53(1):43-45.
2006 Gast, RJ, DJ Beaudoin, DM Moran, JN Blythe, MR Dennett and DA Caron. High abundance of a novel dinoflagellate phylotype in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Journal of Phycology 42:233-242.
2006 Lyons, MM, R Smolowitz, KR Uhlinger, RJ Gast and JE Ward. Lethal marine snow: pathogen of bivalve mollusk concealed in marine aggregates. Limnology and Oceanography 50(6):1983-1988.
2005 Mullen, TE, KR Nevis, CJ O’Kelly, RJ Gast and S Frasca Jr. Nuclear small-subunit ribosomal RNA gene-based characterization, molecular phylogeny and PCR detection of the Neoparamoeba from Western Long Island Sound lobsters. Journal of Shellfish Research 24(3):719-731.
2005 Frasca Jr., S, ES Weber, H Urquhart, T Wheeler, X Liao, M Gladd, K Cecchini, P Hudson, M May, RJ Gast, TS Gorton and SJ Geary. Isolation and characterization of Mycoplasma sphenisci sp. nov., from the choana of an aquarium-reared jackass penguin (Spheniscus demersus) Journal of Clinical Microbiology 43(6):2976-2979.
2005 Countway, PD, RJ Gast, P Savai and DA Caron. Protistan diversity estimates based on 18S rDNA from seawater incubations in the western N. Atlantic. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology 52(2): 95-106.
2004 Gast, RJ, MR Dennett and DA Caron. Characterization of Protistan Assemblages in the Ross Sea, Antarctica by Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis. Applied Environmental Microbiology 70:2028-2037.
2003 Gast, RJ, DJ Beaudoin and DA Caron. Isolation of symbiotically expressed genes from the dinoflagellate symbiont of the solitary radiolarian Thalassicolla nucleata Biological Bulletin 204:210-214.
2001 Gast, RJ and DA Caron. Photosymbiotic associations in planktonic forminifera and radiolaria. Hydrobiologia 461:1-7.
2001 Gast, RJ. Development of an Acanthamoeba-specific reverse dot blot and the discovery of a new ribotype. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology 48:609-615.
2000 Gast, RJ, TA McDonnell* and DA Caron. srDNA-based taxonomic affinities of algal symbionts from a planktonic foraminifer and a solitary radiolarian. J. Pycol. 36:172-7.
1999 Caron, DA, RJ Gast, EL Lim and MR Dennett. Protistan community structure: molecular approaches for answering ecological questions. Hydrobiologia. 401:215-227.
1999 Caron, DA, EL Lim, MR Dennett, RJ Gast, C Kosman and EF DeLong. Molecular phylogenetic analysis of the heterotrophic chrysophyte Paraphysomonas, and the design on rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes for two species. J. Phycol. 35:824-837.
1998 Stothard, DR, J Diedrich-Schroeder, MH Awwad, RJ Gast, DR Ledee, SR Zaragoza, C Williams, PA Fuerst and TJ Byers. The evolutionary history of the genus Acanthamoeba and the identification of eight new 18S rRNA gene sequence types. J. Euk. Microbiol. 45(1):45-54.
1996 Gast, RJ and D. Caron. Molecular phylogeny of symbiotic dinoflagellates from planktonic foraminifera and radiolaria. Mol. Biol. Evol. 13(9):1192-1197.
1996 Gast, RJ, DR Ledee, PA Fuerst and TJ Byers. Subgenus Systematics of Acanthamoeba: Four Nuclear 18S rDNA Sequence Types. J. Euk. Microbiol. 43(6):498-504.
1995 Gast, RJ and TJ Byers. Genus- and subgenus-specific oligonucleotide probes for Acanthamoeba. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 71; 255-260.
1994 Gast, RJ, PA Fuerst and TJ Byers. Discovery of group I introns in the nuclear small subunit ribosomal RNA genes of Acanthamoeba. Nucleic Acids Res. 22(4):592-596.
1994 Weekers, PHH, RJ Gast, PA Fuerst and TJ Byers. Sequence variations in small-subunit ribosomal RNAs of Hartmannella vermiformis and their phylogenetic implications. Mol. Biol. Evol. 11(4):684-690.
1992 Hugo, ER, VJ Stewart, RJ Gast and TJ Byers. Purification of amoeba mtDNA using the UNSET procedure. In: Protocols in Protozoology (J.J. Lee and A.T. Soldo eds.) D 7.1-7.2 Society of Protozoologists.
* indicates undergraduate student involved in the research project and publication
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
1995 Caron, DA and RJ Gast. “Probing biodiversity with molecular techniques” Oceanus, 38: 11-15.
1999 RJ Gast. WHOI annual report “Antarctic Studies Illuminate Diversity in Extreme Environments”
2000 “The Good, the Bad and the Ubiquitous: Acanthamoeba in the Marine Environment” report written by Tracey Crago summarizing the Acanthamoeba research that I have accomplished with funding from WHOI Sea Grant (Sea Grant publication)
2000 RJ Gast “Detection and Quantification of Live Acanthamoeba in Natural Marine Ecosystems Using Molecular Genetic Methods” Sea Grant Program Guide.
2002 Fathom online feature about Antarctic Protistan Diversity
2004 Revealing the Ocean’s invisible Abundance: New instruments enable studies of diverse microbial communities at the center of the oceanic food web Oceanus.
2005 Protists in the Antarctic Antarctic Sun (Online publication)
2009 DA Caron, RJ Gast and PD Countway Microbial eukaryote ecology: Questions of diversity and biogeography Microbe (ASM)
2009 Caron, DA and RJ Gast Heterotrophic protists associated with sea ice. In Sea Ice, pp.327-356. 2nd Edition edited by D.N. Thomas and G.S. Dieckmann Wiley-Blackwell.
2017 Caron, DA, RJ Gast and Marie-Ève Garneau. Sea ice as a habitat for micrograzers. In Sea Ice. 3rd Edition edited by D.N. Thomas and G.S. Dieckmann.