Polik Catherine A.

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Last Name
Polik
First Name
Catherine A.
ORCID
0000-0003-0440-1162

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  • Article
    Linking diatom-diazotroph symbioses to nitrogen cycle perturbations and deep-water anoxia: insights from Mediterranean sapropel events
    (Elsevier, 2021-07-30) Elling, Felix J. ; Hemingway, Jordon D. ; Kharbush, Jenan J. ; Becker, Kevin W. ; Polik, Catherine A. ; Pearson, Ann
    Elevated organic matter (OM) export flux promotes marine anoxia, thus increasing carbon sequestration efficiency and decreasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. However, the mechanisms that trigger and sustain anoxic events—particularly those associated with nutrient-poor, oligotrophic surface waters—remain poorly constrained. Mediterranean Sea sapropels are well-preserved sediments deposited during episodic anoxic events throughout the Plio-Pleistocene; as such, they may provide unique insight into the biogeochemical and ecological drivers of—and responses to—marine anoxia. Using biomarker distributions, we demonstrate that anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacteria and diazotrophic endosymbionts of mat- and/or raft-forming diatoms were both abundant during sapropel events, particularly in the Ionian and Libyan seas. In these sapropels, the carbon isotope compositions of anammox biomarkers directly capture progressive 13C-depletion in deep-water dissolved inorganic carbon, indicating sustained carbon sequestration. To explain these observations, we propose a reinforcing feedback whereby initial nutrient and/or circulation perturbations promote fixed nitrogen loss via intensified anammox and heterotrophic denitrification, which in turn favors proliferation of rapidly sinking diatom-diazotroph symbiotic consortia, increases OM burial flux, and sustains anoxia. This mechanism resolves the long-standing conundrum that small and buoyant diazotrophs are apparently associated with high OM export during periods of marine anoxia and oligotrophy.
  • Article
    Controls on the respiration of ancient carbon draining from permafrost soils into sunlit Arctic surface waters
    (American Geophysical Union, 2024-05-08) Rieb, Emma C. ; Polik, Catherine A. ; Ward, Collin P. ; Kling, George W. ; Cory, Rose M.
    The thawing of ancient organic carbon stored in arctic permafrost soils, and its oxidation to carbon dioxide (CO2, a greenhouse gas), is predicted to amplify global warming. However, the extent to which organic carbon in thawing permafrost soils will be released as CO2 is uncertain. A critical unknown is the extent to which dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from thawing permafrost soils is respired to CO2 by microbes upon export of freshly thawed DOC to both dark bottom waters and sunlit surface waters. In this study, we quantified the radiocarbon age and 13C composition of CO2 produced by microbial respiration of DOC that was leached from permafrost soils and either kept in the dark or exposed to ultraviolet and visible wavelengths of light. We show that permafrost DOC most labile to microbial respiration was as old or older (ages 4,000–11,000 a BP) and more 13C-depleted than the bulk DOC in both dark and light-exposed treatments, likely indicating respiration of old, 13C-depleted lignin and lipid fractions of the permafrost DOC pool. Light exposure either increased, decreased, or had no effect on the magnitude of microbial respiration of old permafrost DOC relative to respiration in the dark, depending on both the extent of DOC oxidation during exposure to light and the wavelength of light. Together, these findings suggest that photochemical changes affecting the lability of permafrost DOC during sunlight exposure are an important control on the magnitude of microbial respiration of permafrost DOC in arctic surface waters.