Jizhong Zhou


Jizhong Zhou is an internationally renowned microbial ecologist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Academia Europaea. Dr. Zhou is a George Lynn Cross Research Professor and Presidential Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, Director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics, and an Adjunct Professor at School of Civil Engineering, Environmental Sciences, and the School of Computer Sciences, University of Oklahoma. He is also an Adjunct Senior Scientist at Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Education

Major awards

  • 2024, Distinguished Scientist Award by Southeastern Universities Research  Association (SURA) - Recognizes researchers whose work fulfills SURA's mission to advance collaborative research and strengthen scientific capabilities
  • 2024, Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from University of Oklahoma - The university's highest academic honor, recognizing exceptional and innovative research with broad societal impact
  • 2022, ISME-IWA BioCluster Grand Prize Award - Jointly awarded by the International Society for Microbial Ecology and International Water Association for interdisciplinary research bridging microbial ecology and water treatment technologies
  • 2022, SSSA Award for soil sciences - Recognizes significant advances in soil science research
  • 2019, ASM Award for Environmental Research - Honors outstanding achievements in environmental microbiology and microbial ecology research
  • 2015, DOE’s Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award - The U.S. Department of Energy's highest scientific honor, awarded for exceptional contributions to research
  • 2009, R&D 100 Award - Recognized by R&D Magazine for developing GeoChip, selected as one of the year's 100 most significant technological innovations
  • 2001, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers - The highest U.S. government honor for early-career scientists and engineers, awarded by the White House
  • 1996, Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Award - Established by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of America's most prestigious postdoctoral honors.

Major honors

Awards established

Cindy and Jizhong Zhou Graduate Student/Post-doctorate Travel Award in Environmental Science and Technology

Based at the University of Oklahoma, this award supports graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in environmental science and technology for conference travel and research exchanges.

Jizhong Zhou Award on Microbial Ecology for Outstanding Middle Career Microbial Ecologists

Established in 2017 by the Chinese Society for Microbial Ecology, this award honors outstanding mid-career researchers in microbial ecology.

Journal editor

  • 2021-Present, Co Editor-in-Chief, mLife
  • 2019-Present, Associate Editor for Microbiome/Environmental Microbiome
  • 2017-2023, Senior Editor, ISME Journal
  • 2014-2020, Section Editor, Microbial Ecology and Evolution, BMC Microbiology
  • 2009-2019, Senior Editor, mBio, ASM flagship journal
  • 2003-2013, Editor, Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Selected publications

  • Climate Change Biology
  • * Tao et al. 2024. Climate warming accelerates positive soil priming in a temperate grassland ecosystem. Nature Communications, 15:1178
  • * Zhang et al. 2023. Experimental Warming Leads to Convergent Succession of Grassland Archaeal Community. Nature Climate Change, 13, 561–569
  • * Wu et al. 2022. Reduction of microbial diversity in grassland soil is driven by long-term climate warming. Nature Microbiology. 7, 1054–1062.
  • * Yuan et al. 2021. Climate Warming Enhances Microbial Network Complexity and Stability. Nature Climate Change, 11:343-348.
  • * Gao et al. 2020. Stimulation of soil respiration by elevated CO2 is enhanced under nitrogen limitation in a decade-long grassland study. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 117: 33317-33324
  • * Guo et al. 2020. Gene-informed decomposition model predicts lower soil carbon loss due to persistent microbial adaptation to warming. Nature Communications. 11, 4897. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18706-z
  • * Guo et al. 2019. Climate warming accelerates temporal scaling of grassland soil microbial biodiversity. Nature Ecol & Evol., 3, 612–61
  • * Guo et al. 2018. Climate Warming Leads to Divergent Succession of Grassland Microbial Communities. Nature Climate Change. 8:813-818
  • * Xue et al. 2016. Tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming. Nature Climate Change, 6: 595-600
  • * Zhou et al. 2012. Microbial Mediation of Carbon Cycle Feedbacks to Climate Warming. Nature Climate Change, 2:106-110.
  • * Deysh et al. 1998. Isolation of acidophilic methane-oxidizing bacteria from northern peat wetlands. Science, 282: 281-284
  • Environmental remediation
  • * Wu, et al. 2019. Global diversity and biogeography of bacterial communities in wastewater treatment plants. Nature Microbiology, 4:1183–1195.
  • * Zhou et al. 2014. Stochasticity, Succession and Environmental Perturbations in a Fluidic Ecosystem. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 111: E836-E845.
  • * Hazen et al. 2010. Deep-sea oil plume enriches Indigenous oil-degrading bacteria. Science, 330: 204-208.
  • * Xu et al. 2010. Responses of microbial community functional structures to pilot-scale uranium in situ bioremediation. ISME J,  4:1060-1070
  • * Liu et al. 2003. Transcriptome dynamics of Deinococcus radiodurans recovering from ionizing radiation. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci, 100: 4191-4196
  • * Liu et al. 1997. Thermophilic Fe-reducing bacteria from the deep subsurface: The evolutionary implications. Science 277: 1106-1109
  • Theoretical Ecology
  • * Ning et al. 2024. Environmental stress mediates groundwater microbial community assembly. Nature Microbiology, 9:490-501.
  • * Buzzard et al. 2019. Continental scale structuring of forest and soil diversity via functional traits. Nature Ecol. & Evol., 3, 1298–1308
  • * Zhou and Ning. 2017. Stochastic Community Assembly: Does It Matter in Microbial Ecology? Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, 81:e00002-17
  • * Zhou et al.  2016. Temperature mediates continental-scale diversity of microbes in forest soils. Nature Communication, 7:12083, doi:10.1038/ncomms12083
  • * Zhou et al. 2013. Stochastic assembly leads to alternative communities with distinct functions. mBio, 4: e00584-12
  • * Zhou et al. 2008. Spatial Scaling of Functional Gene Diversity across Various Microbial Taxa. Proc Nat. Acad. Sci. 105: 7768-7773
  • * Zhou et al. 2002. Spatial and resource factors influencing high soil microbial diversity. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 68: 326-334
  • Experimental genomic technologies
  • * Zhou et al. 2015. High-Throughput Metagenomic Technologies for Complex Microbial Community Analysis: Open and Closed Formats. mBio 6:e02288-14
  • * Zhou et al. 2011. Reproducibility and Quantitation of Amplicon Sequencing-Based Detection. ISME J, 5:1303-1313
  • * Zhou et al. 2013. Random Sampling Process Leads to Overestimation of β-Diversity of Microbial Communities. mBio 4: e00324-13.
  • * He et al. 2007. GeoChip: A comprehensive microarray for investigating biogeochemical, ecological, and environmental processes. ISME J, 1: 67-77
  • * Zhou et al. 1996. DNA recovery from soils of diverse composition. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 62: 316-322
  • Computational genomic technologies
  • * Xiao, et al. 2022. Disentangling Direct from Indirect Relationships in Association Networks. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 119 No. 2 e2109995119, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2109995119.
  • * Ning et al. 2020. A quantitative framework reveals ecological drivers of grassland soil microbial community assembly in response to warming. Nature Communication, 11:4717.
  • * Ning et al. 2019. A General Framework for Quantitatively Assessing Ecological Stochasticity. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 116: 16893-16898.
  • * Deng et al. 2016. Network succession reveals the importance of competition in response to emulsified vegetable oil amendment for uranium bioremediation. Environ. Microbiol., 18: 205-218;
  • * Deng et al. 2012. Molecular Ecological Network Analyses. BMC Bioinformatics, 13:113
  • * Zhou et al. 2011. Phylogenetic molecular ecological network of soil microbial communities in response to elevated CO2. mBio 2: e00122-11.
  • * Zhou et al. 2010. Functional Molecular Ecological Networks. mBio 1:e00169-10