The International Center for Deep Life Investigation (IC-DLI) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2022 “Deep Life Paper” and “SiYuan-Ocean Emerging Leaders” Awards.

 

The purpose of the awards is to recognize significant scholarly contributions and outstanding early career researchers in order to encourage further contributions into deep life research and foster the next generation of researchers in this field.

 

2022 “Deep Life Paper”

Out of all the top papers of 2022 proposed by the IC-DLI community, the award committee selected the following four articles as making the most remarkable contributions to the field of deep life.

 

Daniel A. Gittins*, Pierre-Arnaud Desiage, Natasha Morrison, Jayne E. Rattray, Srijak Bhatnagar#, Anirban Chakraborty, Jackie Zorz, Carmen Li, Oliver Horanszky, Margaret A. Cramm, Francesco Bisiach, Robbie Bennett, Jamie Webb, Adam MacDonald, Martin Fowler, D. Calvin Campbell, Casey R. J. Hubert. Geological processes mediate a microbial dispersal loop in the deep biosphere. Science Advances 8.34 (2022): eabn3485.

“for demonstrating nicely the presence of a microbial dispersal loop mediated by geological process, which circulates living biomass in and out of the deep biosphere.”

 

Xiyang Dong*, Chuwen Zhang, Yongyi Peng, Hong-Xi Zhang, Ling-Dong Shi, Guangshan Wei, Casey R. J. Hubert, Yong Wang* & Chris Greening. Phylogenetically and catabolically diverse diazotrophs reside in deep-sea cold seep sediments. Nature Communications 13.1 (2022): 4885.

“for expanding largely the diversity of diazotrophs in cold seeps, which might contribute substantially to the global nitrogen balance.”

 

Chin Yik Lin, Harold J. Bradbury*, Gilad Antler, David J. Burdige, Thomas D. Bennett, Shichun Li, Alexandra V. Turchyn. Sediment mineralogy influences the rate of microbial sulfate reduction in marine sediments. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 598 (2022): 117841.

“for demonstrating the influences of clay minerals on the cell activity of sulfate reducing bacterium, indicating the importance for further exploration of the impacts of sediment mineralogy on the microbial activity in the subseafloor biosphere.”

 

Shasha Song, Isaac R. Santos, Huaming Yu, Faming Wang, William C. Burnett, Thomas S. Bianchi, Junyu Dong, Ergang Lian, Bin Zhao, Lawrence Mayer, Qingzhen Yao, Zhigang Yu & Bochao Xu*. A global assessment of the mixed layer in coastal sediments and implications for carbon storage. Nature communications 13.1 (2022): 4903.

“for providing the global distribution of the sediment mixed layer (SML), revealing that organic carbon preservation and SMLs are inversely related which provide the basis for further understanding the abundance and activity of deep life in the sediments.”

 

2022 “SiYuan-Ocean Emerging Leaders”

This award honors early career researchers for their distinguished performance and outstanding potential as leaders in the deep life community. The recipients were selected from among candidates proposed by the members of the IC-DLI community.

 

The “SiYuan-Ocean Emerging Leaders” for 2022 are:

 

Yige Zhang

Associate professor at Texas A&M University

Yige Zhang is honored as a “SiYuan-Ocean Emerging Leader” for developing and applying new organic geochemical approaches to study the geological carbon cycle, with particular emphasis on the greenhouse gases CO₂ and CH₄.

 

Melody R. Lindsay

Research Scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science

Melody R. Lindsay is honored as a “SiYuan-Ocean Emerging Leader” For discovery of linkages between subsurface volatiles and microbial metabolisms, especially through H₂ and phase separation.”

 

IC-DLI warmly congratulates the award winners and pays tribute to their significant contributions to deep life research. The award winners are invited to give honorable talks at the 2022 IC-DLI webinar series starting in April.

 

We would also like to thank our award committee for their time and effort.

Award Committee:

Chair: Kai-Uwe Hinrichs (University of Bremen)

Member: Fengping Wang (Shanghai Jiao Tong University), Karen Lloyd (University of Tennessee), Mark Lever (The University of Texas), Yuki Morono (JAMSTEC), Elizabeth Trembath-Reichert (Arizona State University), and Nagissa Mahmoudi (McGill University).

 

Any comments, suggestions or questions are more than welcomed. please feel free to contact Manping Zhang by email: icdli-mailing@sjtu.edu.cn.