PI | University of Southern California | n.levine@usc.edu
Bio
My research focuses on understanding the interactions between climate and marine microbial ecosystem composition and function. I seek to illuminate the mechanisms through which climate variability influences microbial systems and to identify how microbial systems in turn impact climate. My research group is developing innovative, interdisciplinary numerical models that allow us to understand how dynamics occurring at the scale of individual microbes impact large-scale ecosystem processes such as rates of global carbon cycling. We are tackling fundamental challenges in Biological Oceanography related to evolution and cycling of organic carbon – work that will allow us to generate more robust predictions of what our future world will look like.
Selected Publications:
Zakem, EJ†*, BB Cael, and NM Levine, Microbial controls on dissolved organic matter in the ocean, bioRxiv doi:10.1101/2020.09.25.314021 (in press), PNAS,
Walworth, N*, EJ Zakem, JP Dunne, S Collins, and NM Levine† (2020), Microbial evolutionary strategies in a dynamic ocean, PNAS, doi:10.1073/pnas.1919332117
Zakem, EJ*† and NM Levine (2019), Systematic variation in marine dissolved organic matter stoichiometry and remineralization ratios as a function of lability, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, doi: 10.1029/2019GB006375
Research Interests
microbial ecosystem dynamics, microbial adaptation, climate-ecosystem interactions, marine carbon and nutrient cycling
