News
May 4, 2023
Study Finds Archaea in a Warming Climate Become Less Diverse, More Predictable
Led by Jizhong Zhou, Ph.D., the director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics at the University of Oklahoma, an international research team conducted a long term experiment that found that climate warming reduced the diversity of and significantly altered the community structure of soil archaea. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01664-x
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDOEOS/bulletins/35d45aa
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April 19, 2023
Jizhong Zhou Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Jizhong Zhou is among the nearly 270 accomplished scholars from around the world who have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Each year, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors excellence and convenes leaders to work together to help set the direction of research and analysis in science and technology policy, global security and international affairs, social policy, education, the humanities and the arts.
https://www.amacad.org/news/2023-member-announcement
https://www.amacad.org/new-members-2023
https://dailycal.org/2023/04/24/election
https://enigma.lbl.gov/jizhong-zhou-elected-to-the-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences/
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March 27, 2023
Jizhong Zhou Receives 2023 Research.com Ecology and Evolution Leader Award
Research.com announced the most recent rank of the best scientists in Ecology and Evolution. Dr. Jizhong Zhou has been ranked 19th in the USA and 40th globally and received the Ecology and Evolution in United States Leader Award. https://research.com/u/jizhong-zhou
August 15, 2022
Jizhong Zhou Receives 2022 ISME-IWA BioCluster Award
Jizhong Zhou, Ph.D., a George Lynn Cross Research Professor and the director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics at the University of Oklahoma, has received the BioCluster Grand Prize Award, jointly selected by the International Society for Microbial Ecology and the International Water Association. The prestigious ISME-IWA BioCluster Award recognizes interdisciplinary research of outstanding merit at the interface of microbial ecology and water/wastewater treatment. The prize will be conferred in Sept. during the IWA World Water Congress and Exhibition 2022 in Copenhagen, Denmark and he was recognized in the opening presentation of the 18th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology conference on Aug. 14 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
https://ou.edu/research-norman/news-events/2022/jizhong-zhou-receives-2022-isme-iwa-biocluster-award
https://iwa-network.org/news/winners-of-isme-iwa-biocluster-award-2022-announced/
July 7, 2022
Jizhong Zhou Receives Soil Science Society of America’s 2022 Soil Science Research Award
Jizhong Zhou, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics at the University of Oklahoma, has received the 2022 Soil Science Research Award from the Soil Science Society of America. The award recognizes outstanding research contributions in soil science and will be conferred during the SSSA annual meeting in November 2022.
June 14, 2022
OU Research Finds that a Warming Climate Decreases Microbial Diversity
Researchers at the University of Oklahoma have found that the warming climate is decreasing microbial diversity, which is essential for soil health. Led by Jizhong Zhou, Ph.D., the director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics at OU, the research team conducted an eight-year experiment that found that climate warming played a predominant role in shaping microbial biodiversity, with significant negative effect. Their findings are published in Nature Microbiology.
“Climate change is a major driver of biodiversity loss from local to global scales, which could further alter ecosystem functioning and services,” Zhou said. “Despite the critical importance of belowground soil biodiversity in maintaining ecosystem functions, how climate change might affect the richness and abundant distribution of soil microbial communities (bacteria, fungi, protists) was unresolved.”
The article, “Reduction of microbial diversity in grassland soil is driven by long-term climate warming," is published in Nature Microbiology, #10.1038/s41564-022-01147-3. The research is supported by funding from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, DE-SC0004601 and DE-SC0010715. Zhou is also a George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences and an adjunct professor in the Gallogly College of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma.
April 22, 2022-
Institute for Environmental Genomics contributes to ASM report
Jizhong Zhou, director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics and a George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, has contributed to a new report published by the American Society for Microbiology. The report, Microbes and Climate Change – Science, People, and Impacts, examines the relationship between microbes and climate change, and shows that microbes have a pivotal impact on climate change and are, in turn, impacted by it. The report further contends that it is critical to better understand how the changing climate will impact microbes and how they relate to humans and the environment.