Naomi Levine

• Postdoctoral Investigator, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2013
• NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, 2010 – 2013

Summary Statement of Research Interests

Naomi Levine’s research focuses on understanding the interactions between climate and marine microbial ecosystem composition and function. She seeks to illuminate the mechanisms through which climate variability influences microbial systems and to identify how microbial systems in turn impact climate. The Levine Lab is developing innovative, interdisciplinary numerical models that allow them to understand how dynamics occurring at the scale of individual microbes impact large-scale ecosystem processes, such as rates of global carbon cycling. The Levine Lab is tackling fundamental challenges in Biological Oceanography related to evolution and cycling of organic carbon – work that will allow them to generate more robust predictions of what our future world will look like.

Research Keywords

Microbial ecosystem dynamics, Microbial adaptation, Climate-ecosystem interactions, Marine carbon and nutrient cycling

Research Specialties

Microbial ecosystem dynamics, Microbial adaptation, Climate-ecosystem interactions, Marine carbon and nutrient cycling, Climate Science

Journal Article

• Leles, S. G., Levine, N. M. (2023). Mechanistic constraints on the trade-off between photosynthesis and respiration in response to warming. Science advances. Vol. 9 (35), pp. eadh8043. PubMed Web Address
• Reynolds, R., Hyun, S., Tully, B., Bien, J., Levine, N. M. (2023). Identification of microbial metabolic functional guilds from large genomic datasets. Frontiers in microbiology. Vol. 14, pp. 1197329. PubMed Web Address
• Nguyen, T. T., Zakem, E. J., Ebrahimi, A., Schwartzman, J., Caglar, T., Amarnath, K., Alcolombri, U., Peaudecerf, F. J., Hwa, T., Stocker, R., Cordero, O. X., Levine, N. M. (2022). Microbes contribute to setting the ocean carbon flux by altering the fate of sinking particulates. Nature communications. Vol. 13 (1), pp. 1657. PubMed Web Address
• O’Brien, J., McParland, E. L., Bramucci, A. R., Siboni, N., Ostrowski, M., Kahlke, T., Levine, N. M., Brown, M. V., van, J., Bodrossy, L., Messer, L. F., Petrou, K., Seymour, J. R. (2022). Biogeographical and seasonal dynamics of the marine Roseobacter community and ecological links to DMSP-producing phytoplankton. ISME communications. Vol. 2 (1), pp. 16. PubMed Web Address
• Argyle, P. A., Walworth, N. G., Hinners, J., Collins, S., Levine, N. M., Doblin, M. A. (2021). Multivariate trait analysis reveals diatom plasticity constrained to a reduced set of biological axes. ISME communications. Vol. 1 (1), pp. 59. PubMed Web Address
• Walworth, N. G., Hinners, J., Argyle, P. A., Leles, S. G., Doblin, M. A., Collins, S., Levine, N. M. (2021). The evolution of trait correlations constrains phenotypic adaptation to high CO(2) in a eukaryotic alga. Proceedings. Biological sciences. Vol. 288 (1953), pp. 20210940. PubMed Web Address
• Norris, N., Levine, N. M., Fernandez, V. I., Stocker, R. (2021). Mechanistic model of nutrient uptake explains dichotomy between marine oligotrophic and copiotrophic bacteria. PLoS computational biology. Vol. 17 (5), pp. e1009023. PubMed Web Address
• Zakem, E. J., Cael, B. B., Levine, N. M. (2021). A unified theory for organic matter accumulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 118 (6) PubMed Web Address
• Levine, N. M., Leles, S. G. (2021). Marine plankton metabolisms revealed. Nature microbiology. Vol. 6 (2), pp. 147-148. PubMed Web Address
• McParland, E. L., Lee, M. D., Webb, E., Alexander, H., Levine,McParland, N. M., Lee, M. D., Webb, E., Alexander, H., Levine, N. M. (2021). DMSP synthesis genes distinguish two types of DMSP producer phenotypes. Environmental microbiology. PubMed Web Address
• Walworth, N. G., Zakem, E. J., Dunne, J. P., Collins, S., Levine,Walworth, N. M., Zakem, E. J., Dunne, J. P., Collins, S., Levine, N. M. (2020). Microbial evolutionary strategies in a dynamic ocean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 117 (11), pp. 5943-5948. PubMed Web Address
• McParland, E. L., Wright, A., Art, K., He, M., Levine,McParland, N. M., Wright, A., Art, K., He, M., Levine, N. M. (2020). Evidence for contrasting roles of dimethylsulfoniopropionate production in Emiliania huxleyi and Thalassiosira oceanica. The New phytologist. Vol. 226 (2), pp. 396-409. PubMed Web Address
• Zakem, E. J., Levine, N. M. (2019). Systematic variation in marine dissolved organic matter stoichiometry and remineralization ratios as a function of lability. Global Biogeochemical Cycles.
• Teel, E. N., Liu, X., Seegers, B. N., Ragan, M. A., Haskell, W. Z., Jones, B. H., Levine, N. M. (2018). Contextualizing time-series data: quantification of short-term regional variability in the San Pedro Channel using high-resolution in situ glider data. Biogeosciences/Copernicus Publications. Vol. 15 (20), pp. 6151-6165.
• McParland, E. L., Levine, N. M. (2018). The role of differential DMSP production and community composition in predicting variability of global surface DMSP concentrations. Limnology and Oceanography. Vol. 9999, pp. 1-17.
• Levine, N. M., Zhang, K., Longo, M., Baccini, A., Phillips, O. L., Lewis, S. L., Alvarez-Dávila, E., de Andrade, A. C., Brienen, R. J., Erwin, T. L. (2016). Ecosystem heterogeneity determines the ecological resilience of the Amazon to climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. 113 (3), pp. 793-797.
• Liu, X., Levine, N. M. (2016). Enhancement of phytoplankton chlorophyll by submesoscale frontal dynamics in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Geophysical Research Letters.
• Levine, N. M., Toole, D. A., Neeley, A., Bates, N. R., Doney, S. C., Dacey, J. W. (2016). Revising upper-ocean sulfur dynamics near Bermuda: new lessons from 3 years of concentration and rate measurements. Environmental Chemistry.
• Levine,Levine, N. M. (2016). Putting the spotlight on organic sulfur. Science (New York, N.Y.). Vol. 354 (6311), pp. 418-419. PubMed Web Address
• Levine, N. M., Varaljay, V. A., Toole, D. A., Dacey, J. W., Doney, S. C., Moran, M. A. (2012). Environmental, biochemical and genetic drivers of DMSP degradation and DMS production in the Sargasso Sea. Environmental Microbiology. Vol. 14 (5), pp. 1210-1223.

• USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, 2020-2021
• Simons Foundation Early Career Investigator in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution Awards, 04/2017 – 03/2020
• Sloan Research Fellowship Recipient, Ocean Science, 2016 – 2018
• USC Endowed Professorship, Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences and Earth Sciences, 2013 – 2018