[All-postdocs] Bioseminar - Julia Huggins

[Ana Velez]

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Biology Department Seminar

Thursday, October 30, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Redfield Auditorium

Julia Huggins
Postdoctoral Investigator, WHOI

Linking Process Rates, Genes, and Bioenergetics Across the Transition from Aerobic to Anaerobic Microbial Metabolisms in Low-O₂ Marine Waters
The transition from aerobic respiration to anaerobic microbial metabolisms largely determines how ocean deoxygenation will alter global biogeochemical cycling. As marine oxygen inventories decline, the outcomes depend on the low-O₂ thresholds at which anaerobic pathways engage-and, crucially, which metabolisms dominate. Multiple nitrogen- and sulfur-based processes can activate under low-oxygen conditions, yet the environmental and physiological factors governing this transition remain poorly constrained. In the first part of my talk, I will present findings from my PhD research showing that facultative aerobic microorganisms can support high rates of nitrogen recycling through dissimilatory nitrite reduction to ammonium (DNRA), which complicates canonical assumptions about the transition to nitrogen-based metabolisms in low-O₂ marine waters. In the second part of my talk, I will discuss my ongoing postdoctoral work at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution integrating nitrogen- and sulfur-based metabolic process rate measurements with genomic information and bioenergetic modeling. This work aims to mechanistically link functional genes and organisms to metabolic transitions, and to define the thresholds that govern microbial energy flexibility in a deoxygenating ocean.

Biology Seminar Web Page<https://www.whoi.edu/what-we-do/understand/departments-centers-labs/bio/bio-highlights-events/>

For questions, contact:

Ana Maria Velez
Biology Pre-Award Administrative Associate
Ph: 508-289-2334
[signature_1005462319]

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