Research in Mou lab focuses on linking bacterial phylogeny with their metabolic functions in natural aquatic environments. This direct linkage is important to understand fundamental questions in an ecological/environmental context, such as the role of bacteria in biogeochemical cycling of essential nutrients, e.g., carbon, nitrogen and sulfur. Experimental metagenomics and metatranscriptomics coupled with bioinformatics are employed as the core approach to simultaneously identify the taxonomic diversity, genetic capability, and metabolic activity of selected taxonomic and functional groups of aquatic bacteria. Other advanced molecular biology techniques, such as qPCR, RT-PCR, CARD-FISH, and flow cytometry (FACS), and cultivation-based studies, such as whole genome microarray, are also regularly employed.
