Jizhong Zhou, PhD
George Lynn Cross Research Professor and Presidential Professor
Director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics
Major expertise is in microbial ecology and genomics with current research focused on: (i) molecular community ecology and metagenomics, particularly in terrestrial soils and groundwater ecosystems important to climate change, bioenergy and environmental remediation, (ii) theoretical ecology, particularly network ecology, and community assembly mechanisms, (iii) experimental evolution and functional genomics of microorganisms important to environment and bioenergy, (iv) high throughput metagenomic technologies, and (v) bioinformatics, ecoinformatics and ecological modeling.
Major achievements include: (i) ground-breaking discoveries in understanding the feedbacks, mechanisms and principles of microbial systems in response to climate change, (ii) pioneering demonstrations of groundwater microbiome diversity, distribution, succession, activities, stability, and their underlying mechanisms in response to heavy metals and bioremediation treatments; (iii) pathbreaking advancements in theoretical ecology of microbial systems, (iv) transformational leadership in developing a revolutionary high throughput genomic technologies for establishing linkages of microbial biodiversity to ecosystem functions; (v) pioneering advances in developing computational technologies for network analysis and community assembly mechanisms.
Tao X, Yang Z, Feng J, Jian S, Yang Y, Bates CT, Wang G, Guo X, Ning D, Kempher ML, Liu XJA, Ouyang Y, Han S, Wu L, Zeng Y, Kuang J, Zhang Y, Zhou X, Shi Z, Qin W, Wang J, Firestone MK, Tiedje JM & Zhou J. Experimental warming accelerates positive soil priming in a temperate grassland ecosystem. Nature Communications 15, 1178 (2024).
Ning D, Wang Y, Fan Y, Wang J, Van Nostrand JD, Wu L, Zhang P, Curtis DJ, Tian R, Lui L, Hazen TC, Alm EJ, Fields MW, Poole F, Adams MWW, Chakraborty R, Stahl DA, Adams PD, Arkin AP, He Z & Zhou J. Environmental stress mediates groundwater microbial community assembly. Nature Microbiology (2024).
Wu L, Zhang Y, Guo X, Ning D, Zhou X, Feng J, Yuan MM, Liu S, Guo J, Gao Z, Ma J, Kuang J, Jian S, Han S, Yang Z, Ouyang Y, Fu Y, Xiao N, Liu X, Wu L, Zhou A, Yang Y, Tiedje JM & Zhou J. Reduction of microbial diversity in grassland soil is driven by long-term climate warming. Nature Microbiology 7, 1054-1062 (2022).
Yuan MM, Guo X, Wu L, Zhang Y, Xiao N, Ning D, Shi Z, Zhou X, Wu L, Yang Y, Tiedje JM & Zhou J. Climate warming enhances microbial network complexity and stability. Nature Climate Change 11, 343-348 (2021).
Zhou J, Deng Y, Zhang P, Xue K, Liang Y, Van Nostrand JD, Yang Y, He Z, Wu L, Stahl DA, Hazen TC, Tiedje JM & Arkin AP. Stochasticity, succession, and environmental perturbations in a fluidic ecosystem. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, E836-E845 (2014).
