Exploring the tiny world in our backyard

Narragansett Bay is laboratory for URI PhD candidate

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As an elementary school student, Erica “Rickie” Ewton read Jurassic Park. It was an introduction to biology, and as a kid she dreamed of somehow procuring dinosaur DNA and creating her own park.

She remembers thinking, “You can do anything if you put your mind to it.” Her love of reading and her mother, Stacey, had a lot to do with her pursuit of discovery. The reading introduced her to new places and ideas.

“I latched onto science,” she says.

 Her mother, a hard worker, kept her on track.

Ewton grew up in Oregon and went to Oregon State University for undergraduate studies. As a sophomore, she was accepted into a program that took her to Australia, where she accompanied a team doing studies on corals. As she was 17 years old, her mother had to sign for her to receive a passport. The experience furthered her interest in research, biology and science.  

The Warwick resident is a recent recipient of an Emerging Coastal Leader Award at the University of Rhode Island. Her field of study has taken her from that early dream of dinosaurs to creatures so small – 5 microns – they aren’t visible to the naked eye. They predate dinosaurs and are considered among the first living organisms – plankton.

There are thousands of plankton species, and Ewton is doing her dissertation on the tiny mixoplankton. Her field of study is relatively new. Her research is leading her to discoveries, including new mixoplanktons.

Ewton is a PhD candidate in biological oceanography at the university›s Graduate School of Oceanography. She anticipates walking across the stage with her husband, Connor Jaymes Dionne, this spring to receive her PhD Dionne is likewise finishing his dissertation. He is studying how to make batteries more efficient and sustainable by modeling and fabricating them from novel materials that are more abundant and geopolitically secure.

It was serendipitous that Ewton and Dionne should meet. Always prepared to try something new – Ewton calls herself a “serial hobbyist” – and realizing she needed a break from her passion for scientific research, she decided to learn ballroom dancing. She and Dionne were paired. They excelled. Their team competed nationally and they won competitions. They would have continued had it not been for the pandemic that fractured the team. But the partnership between Ewton and Dionne blossomed. They were married in 2021.

Narragansett Bay is Ewton’s laboratory. She builds upon water data that includes salinity, temperature, oxygen content and other characteristics that have been recorded daily from the same location in the middle of the bay since the 1950s. Recent samples include live plankton, of which there are two basic types – phytoplankton, tiny plants that derive their energy from the sun and give off oxygen, and zooplankton, which are swimming animals.

Mixoplankton, she explained, live off of nutrients in the water such as phosphorus, nitrogen silica and trace metals, as well as eating other organisms. As they are fed additional nutrients they become larger and turn to phytoplankton. She measures the effect of light on the plankton. She is also studying how mixoplankton can sequester carbon and how that can affect their size. The more carbon, the bigger the plankton, which in the food chain can lead to bigger fish.

Ewton is uncertain where her studies will lead her. The field of study is relatively new. Discoveries keep being made. She enjoys working with others in the field. She thinks her award will introduce her “to a whole network of bright and connected scientists” that will assist her in applying for funding grants.

Warwick is a special place to her.

“I feel so connected to the Bay. I see it. I collect samples. I feel very much a part of it … and I’m trying to figure out how the system works.”

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