Positions

Research Areas research areas

Overview

  • I am a microbial oceanographer studying the role of marine microbes (mainly bacteria) in the ocean’s carbon cycle. My lab is measuring rates and activities of microbes in the water column, sediments, and sinking particles known as marine snow, to address the role of heterotrophic bacterial in the biological carbon pump, and microbial responses to anthropogenic impacts on marine environments such as oil spills, plastic pollution, and increasing sea surface temperature.

    • Selected Publications

    Academic Article

    Year Title
    2025 New insights on the deep alkaline phosphatase paradox from a site in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean.  Deep-Sea Research Part 1: Oceanographic Research Papers.  215:104419-104419. 2025
    2024 Sediment ballast accelerates sinking of Alaska North Slope crude oil measured ex situ with surface water from Cook Inlet.  Environmental Research Communications.  6:075032-075032. 2024
    2024 Microbial interactions with microplastics: Insights into the plastic carbon cycle in the ocean.  Marine Chemistry.  262:104395-104395. 2024
    2022 Distribution and Metabolic Activities of Marine Microbes in Response to Natural and Anthropogenic Stressors.  Journal of Marine Science and Engineering.  10:1119-1119. 2022
    2022 Hydrolysis of Methylumbeliferyl Substrate Proxies for Esterase Activities as Indicator for Microbial Oil Degradation in the Ocean: Evidence from Observations in the Aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (Gulf of Mexico).  Journal of Marine Science and Engineering.  10:583-583. 2022
    2022 Characterization of Particle Sedimentation in a Subarctic Estuary: a Sediment Trap Study over Two Productivity Seasons.  Estuaries and Coasts.  45:2362-2372. 2022
    2021 Sediment Resuspension and Associated Extracellular Enzyme Activities Measured ex situ: A Mechanism for Benthic-Pelagic Coupling in the Deep Gulf of Mexico.  Frontiers in Marine Science.  8. 2021
    2021 From Nano-Gels to Marine Snow: A Synthesis of Gel Formation Processes and Modeling Efforts Involved with Particle Flux in the Ocean..  Gels.  7:114. 2021
    2021 Aggregation and Degradation of Dispersants and Oil by Microbial Exopolymers (ADDOMEx): Toward a Synthesis of Processes and Pathways of Marine Oil Snow Formation in Determining the Fate of Hydrocarbons.  Frontiers in Marine Science.  8. 2021
    2020 Substantial Carbohydrate Hydrolase Activities in the Water Column of the Guaymas Basin (Gulf of California).  Frontiers in Marine Science.  6:815. 2020
    2019 Linking chromophoric organic matter transformation with biomarker indices in a marine phytoplankton growth and degradation experiment.  Marine Chemistry.  214:103665-103665. 2019
    2019 Polysaccharide hydrolysis in the presence of oil and dispersants: Insights into potential degradation pathways of exopolymeric substances (EPS) from oil-degrading bacteria.  Elementa.  7:31. 2019
    2019 Gulf Stream Ring Water Intrusion on the Mid-Atlantic Bight Continental Shelf Break Affects Microbially Driven Carbon Cycling.  Frontiers in Marine Science.  6:394. 2019
    2019 Enhanced formation of transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) under turbulence during phytoplankton growth.  Journal of Plankton Research.  41:349-361. 2019
    2019 Vertical marine snow distribution in the stratified, hypersaline, and anoxic Orca Basin (Gulf of Mexico).  Elementa.  7:10. 2019
    2019 Community structural differences shape microbial responses to high molecular weight organic matter..  Environmental Microbiology.  21:557-571. 2019
    2018 Formation of Chromophoric Dissolved Organic Matter by Bacterial Degradation of Phytoplankton-Derived Aggregates.  Frontiers in Marine Science.  4:430. 2018
    2018 Editorial: Microbial Exopolymers: Sources, Chemico-Physiological Properties, and Ecosystem Effects in the Marine Environment..  Frontiers in Microbiology.  9:1822. 2018
    2017 Ephemeral aggregate layers in the water column leave lasting footprints in the carbon cycle.  LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY LETTERS.  2:202-209. 2017
    2017 Near-surface Heating of Young Rift Sediment Causes Mass Production and Discharge of Reactive Dissolved Organic Matter..  Scientific Reports.  7:44864. 2017
    2017 A Multi-season Investigation of Microbial Extracellular Enzyme Activities in Two Temperate Coastal North Carolina Rivers: Evidence of Spatial but Not Seasonal Patterns..  Frontiers in Microbiology.  8:2589. 2017
    2016 Marine Snow Sedimented Oil Released During the Deepwater Horizon Spill.  Oceanography.  29:118-125. 2016
    2016 Enhanced particle fluxes and heterotrophic bacterial activities in Gulf of Mexico bottom waters following storm-induced sediment resuspension.  Deep-Sea Research Part 2: Topical Studies in Oceanography.  129:77-88. 2016
    2016 Enhanced protein and carbohydrate hydrolyses in plume-associated deepwaters initially sampled during the early stages of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  Deep-Sea Research Part 2: Topical Studies in Oceanography.  129:368-373. 2016
    2016 Microbial enzymatic activity and secondary production in sediments affected by the sedimentation pulse following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  Deep-Sea Research Part 2: Topical Studies in Oceanography.  129:241-248. 2016
    2016 Oil-derived marine aggregates - hot spots of polysaccharide degradation by specialized bacterial communities.  Deep-Sea Research Part 2: Topical Studies in Oceanography.  129:179-186. 2016
    2016 Reply to Prince et al.: Ability of chemical dispersants to reduce oil spill impacts remains unclear..  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA.  113:E1422-E1423. 2016
    2016 Linking Heterotrophic Microbial Activities with Particle Characteristics in Waters of the Mississippi River Delta in the Aftermath of Hurricane Isaac.  Frontiers in Marine Science.  3:8. 2016
    2015 Microbial activities and organic matter degradation at three sites in the coastal North Atlantic: Variations in DOC turnover times and potential for export off the shelf.  Marine Chemistry.  177:388-397. 2015
    2015 Chemical dispersants can suppress the activity of natural oil-degrading microorganisms..  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA.  112:14900-14905. 2015
    2015 Delayed settling of marine snow: Effects of density gradient and particle properties and implications for carbon cycling.  Marine Chemistry.  175:28-38. 2015
    2014 Composition and enzymatic function of particle-associated and free-living bacteria: a coastal/offshore comparison..  The ISME Journal: multidisciplinary journal of microbial ecology.  8:2167-2179. 2014
    2014 Verrucomicrobia are candidates for polysaccharide-degrading bacterioplankton in an arctic fjord of Svalbard..  Applied and Environmental Microbiology.  80:3749-3756. 2014
    2014 Optical and chemical characterization of base-extracted particulate organic matter in coastal marine environments.  Marine Chemistry.  162:96-113. 2014
    2014 Differences in the substrate spectrum of extracellular enzymes in shallow lakes of differing trophic status.  Biogeochemistry: an international journal.  117:143-151. 2014
    2014 Natural oil slicks fuel surface water microbial activities in the northern Gulf of Mexico..  Frontiers in Microbiology.  5:188. 2014
    2013 Delayed settling of marine snow at sharp density transitions driven by fluid entrainment and diffusion-limited retention.  Marine Ecology: Progress Series.  487:185-200. 2013
    2012 Functional variation among polysaccharide-hydrolyzing microbial communities in the Gulf of Mexico.  Marine Chemistry.  138:13-20. 2012
    2012 Comment on the review by German et al. (2011) "Optimization of hydrolytic and oxidative enzyme methods for ecosystem studies" [Soil Biology & Biochemistry 43: 1387-1397].  Soil Biology and Biochemistry.  48:196-197. 2012
    2012 Capturing single cell genomes of active polysaccharide degraders: an unexpected contribution of Verrucomicrobia..  PLoS One.  7:e35314. 2012
    2012 Marine snow formation in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  Environmental Research Letters.  7:035301-035301. 2012
    2012 Microbial activities and dissolved organic matter dynamics in oil-contaminated surface seawater from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site..  PLoS One.  7:e34816. 2012
    2011 Microbial community composition and function in permanently cold seawater and sediments from an arctic fjord of svalbard..  Applied and Environmental Microbiology.  77:2008-2018. 2011
    2011 Latitudinal gradients in degradation of marine dissolved organic carbon..  PLoS One.  6:e28900. 2011
    2010 Changes in the spectrum and rates of extracellular enzyme activities in seawater following aggregate formation.  Biogeosciences.  7:1007-1015. 2010
    2009 Enzyme activities in the Delaware Estuary affected by elevated suspended sediment load (vol 84, pg 253, 2009).  Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.  85:671-671. 2009
    2009 Enzyme activities in the Delaware Estuary affected by elevated suspended sediment load.  Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.  84:253-258. 2009
    2009 Enzyme activities in the water column and in shallow permeable sediments from the northeastern Gulf of Mexico.  Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.  84:202-208. 2009
    2009 Thorium-234 derived information on particle residence times and sediment deposition in shallow waters of the south-western Baltic Sea.  Journal of Marine Systems.  75:360-370. 2009
    2008 Polysaccharide hydrolysis in aggregates and free enzyme activity in aggregate-free seawater from the north-eastern Gulf of Mexico..  Environmental Microbiology.  10:289-299. 2008
    2007 Surface associations of enzymes and of organic matter: Consequences for hydrolytic activity and organic matter remineralization in marine systems.  Marine Chemistry.  104:241-252. 2007
    2005 Aggregation and sinking behaviour of resuspended fluffy layer material.  Continental Shelf Research.  25:1853-1863. 2005
    2003 Sedimentological parameters and erosion behaviour of submarine coastal sediments in the south-western Baltic Sea.  Geo-Marine Letters: an international journal of marine geology.  23:43-52. 2003
    2000 Vertical patterns of suspended matter characteristics along a coastal-basin transect in the western Baltic Sea.  Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.  51:789-804. 2000

    Conference Paper

    Year Title
    2010 Comparison of multivariate microbial datasets with the Shannon index: An example using enzyme activity from diverse marine environments.  Organic Geochemistry. 1019-1021. 2010
    2010 Organic matter degradation and nutrient remobilization in permeable coastal sands.  Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. A435-A435. 2010
    2006 Do benthic diatoms influence erosion thresholds of coastal subtidal sediments?.  Journal of Sea Research. 43-53. 2006

    Principal Investigator On

  • Net community respiration of P  awarded by NERACOOS 2022 - 2026
  • U.S. GO-SHIP I05 Research Crui  awarded by University of California at San Diego 2023
  • RII Track-2 FEC: Genome  awarded by Bigelow Laboratories for Ocean Studies 2018 - 2023
  • RII Track-2 FEC: Single Cell Genome-to-Phenome: Integrating Genome and Phenome Analyses of  awarded by Bigelow Laboratories for Ocean Studies 2018 - 2023
  • Laboratory Investigation of the Acoustic Characteristics of Marine Snow  awarded by School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering 2021 - 2022
  • Using Remote Sensing and Field Investigations of Suspended Sediments to Determine the Role of Re-suspension Events on Nutrient Dynamics and Phytoplankton Responses in Western Lake Erie  awarded by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 2016 - 2021
  • Western Lake Erie Responses  awarded by National Aeronautics & Space Admin (NASA) 2016 - 2021
  • ADDOMEx-2  awarded by Texas A & M University 2018 - 2019
  • Aggregation and Degredation of Dispersants and Oil by Microbial Exopolymers-2 (ADDOMEx-2)  awarded by Texas A&M University 2018 - 2019
  • Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs into the Gulf-2 (ECOGIG-2) Supplement  awarded by University of Georgia 2018
  • Collaborative Research: Planktonic Sources of Chromophoric Dissolved Organic Matter in Seawater  awarded by National Science Foundation (NSF) 2015 - 2018
  • Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and gas Inputs to the Gulf - 2 (ECOGIG-2)  awarded by University of North Carolina 2015 - 2017

    • Investigator On

    Teaching Activities

  • Advanced Research Experience Taught course
  • Student Research Experience Taught course 2023
  • Top/Marine Microbes Taught course 2019

    • Education And Training

    Full Name

  • Kai Ziervogel