June 2026
Motahare gives a talk at ASM Microbe in DC
Motahare was selected to present her work on methane exposure from anthropogenic subsurface leaks in the session "Microbes and Climate: Drivers of Earth’s Resilience"
Featured update
Spring 2026
new methane-release field experiment underway!
The lab has begun a follow-up METEC methane-release experiment using a newly constructed test bed with baseline, disturbance-control, and early leak time points. This design lets us track how methane exposure, geochemistry, and microbial communities change through time.
site
METEC · Colorado
01
baseline
02
release
03
response
CH4
gas release
O2
redox zone
DNA
microbiomes
δ13C
carbon cycling
recent highlights
May 2026
Motahare receives IOA award in NYC
Motahare traveled to New York City to receive her scholar award that supports talented Iranian students, scholars, and artists in their pursuit of graduate education in the United States
April 2026
Ammara promoted to permanent position
Ammara was promoted to Laboratory Operations Manager for the Biogeochemistry Research Group at SMU, primarily organizing and coordinating research across the Chase and LaRowe Labs
archive
2026
Spring 2026
California training visits strengthen lab omics expertise
During Alex’s sabbatical in California, Ammara visited Scripps Institution of Oceanography to learn environmental metabolomics and molecular networking, while Motahare visited UC Irvine for hands-on training in next-generation sequencing. These visits expand the lab’s capacity to connect molecules, genomes, and microbial ecology.
Jan. 2026
Alex started his sabbatical at UC Irvine
Alex is working with Jennifer Martiny and Alejandra Rodriguez-Verdugo on microbial ecological and evolutionary processes structuring environmental microbiomes.
2025
Nov. 2025
New paper in PNAS: Evolution of octocoral terpene cyclases
A new study led by Immo Burkhardt and an international team uncovers the evolutionary origins of terpene cyclase genes in octocorals. The Chase Lab contributed comparative genomics and evolutionary analyses showing that these biosynthetic capabilities trace back to the last common ancestor of octocorals more than 500 million years ago
Sept. 2025
New metagenomic perspectives in microbial evolution
A new review in Current Opinion in Microbiology by Abby Simpson and colleagues highlights how metagenomic sequencing is transforming the study of evolution in natural microbial communities. The review discusses how mutation, selection, drift, and gene flow can be detected and interpreted from environmental sequencing data
July 2025
New fieldwork season off and running in Colorado
Motahare traveled to METEC in Fort Collins, Colorado, for the next round of field sampling. This time, the team is working with a newly constructed test bed for controlled natural gas release, giving us a rare opportunity to measure how methane, geochemistry, and microbial communities change from the start of the experiment.
2024
Aug. 2024
Presenting data in South Africa
Alex presented a poster on a field manipulation of varying levels of diversity at ISME19 in South Africa. Main highlight was Jennifer Martiny being awarded the inaugural Winogradsky Award!
June 2024
New marine natural products papers
Two new papers highlight marine natural product discovery. One examines the potential for marine Streptomyces lineage MAR4 to produce new natural products, and another uses non-invasive sampling in intertidal near-shore systems to discover new carbon skeletons
May 2024
Energy & Environment Colloquium
Organized the 2nd annual SMU Energy & Environment Colloquium with SMU School of Law and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
April 2024
Chase Lab members present new data
Chase Lab members presented research at a range of conferences and symposia. Undergraduate student Ruhani presented work on methanogens and natural gas pipeline leaks, and Prof. Chase presented work on microbiome evolution at EGU in Vienna and gave an invited seminar at OSU Micro
2023
Aug. 2023
Awarded NOAA grant with SIO/UCSD
Chase Lab received a NOAA grant along with collaborators at SIO/UCSD to investigate the biopharmaceutical potential of marine invertebrates and sediments in the deep-sea
July 2023
New collaborations at SMU
A new collaboration with Dr. Kathleen Smits in SMU Engineering uses a multidisciplinary approach to understand carbon sources and sinks in soils, including methane mitigation from anthropogenic subsurface sources such as natural gas pipeline leaks
April 2023
Chemical ecology and microbial community structure
New work in The ISME Journal investigates the role of biotic interactions in microbiome community structure by examining specialized metabolites and the distributions of their biosynthetic machinery. The work was also featured in an editorial in Nature Microbiology
March 2023
Evolution in biogeochemistry
Two new papers examine the importance of microbial evolution in environmental change and ecosystem function. One paper addresses microbial eco-evolutionary mechanisms in soil carbon models, and another proposes a framework for integrating evolution into microbiome-function relationships
2022
April 2022
New position at SMU
Prof. Chase joined the Department of Earth Sciences at Southern Methodist University as part of a cluster hire focused on climate and atmospheric science. The lab focuses on microbial ecology and evolution in the context of biogeochemical cycling in environmental systems
2021
Nov. 2021
First natural products paper in mBio
New work examines how specialized metabolites and biosynthetic gene clusters evolve after acquisition. The study shows that biosynthetic gene clusters can be retained over evolutionary time through vertical inheritance, allowing evolutionary processes to generate new chemical diversity
Aug. 2021
NIH R21 fieldwork at Cabrillo National Monument
Fieldwork began at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego in collaboration with the National Park Service. The project uses a resin-capture technique to search for novel marine natural products from intertidal environments
May 2021
New paper in PNAS
A large-scale reciprocal transplant experiment across a regional climate gradient was published in PNAS. The work examined bacterial evolutionary responses and community-level patterns in the Martiny Lab at UC Irvine
March 2021
May the fiber be with you
Results from a course-based undergraduate research experience on dietary fiber and the gut microbiome were published. The study showed compositional shifts associated with dietary fiber intervention, including increases in fiber-degrading bacteria
2019
Oct. 2019
Bacteria and sympatry
A new paper in mBio identified factors structuring the genetic diversity of a soil bacterium across spatial scales. The study found that bacterial populations are maintained by ecological specialization within localized microenvironments and by dispersal limitation between geographic locations
Jan. 2019
New fellowship at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Prof. Chase began a postdoctoral fellowship with Paul Jensen at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, integrating evolutionary biology into the discovery of marine natural products through a trait-based framework
Research |
Approaches |
Lab & SMU |
|