Dr. Dawn Sumner’s Study, Metabolic Evolution Induced by Oxygenation, Accepted into AEM Planetary Microbiology
How do we study the evolution of microbial life on early Earth? In the hundreds of millions of years that followed the oxygenation of our planet, Earth’s surface was transformed by microbial evolution, diversifying the ways in which organisms used energy and changed the chemistry of environments. Geobiologist and UC Davis Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Dr. Dawn Sumner utilized these insights combined with those derived from a particular carbon signature in rocks of these earlier periods known as Lomagundi-Jatuli excursion (LJE) to establish a metabolic evolution model.
In June, Dr. Sumner's pioneering study was published by the American Society for Microbiology’s (ASM) scientific journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology (AEM). Planetary Microbiology, the journal’s editorial issue highlighting her study, elevates research contributions expanding on the dynamic interactions between microbes and their terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. Ultimately, these interactions allow scientists to build the historical narrative of life on Earth.
At UC Davis, Dr. Sumner’s lab investigates Earth-life interactions through interdependencies among evolution, ecology, and environmental conditions. Among the group’s research areas are environmental setting, geochemistry and morphology of Archean microbialites; the morphology, climate response, and genomics of modern microbial communities growing in ice-covered Antarctic lakes; and the stratigraphy and geochemistry of sedimentary rocks on Mars via the Curiosity Rover.
Dr. Sumner is the director at the Feminist Research Institute, which seeks to create more impactful and accurate knowledge by combining a commitment to social and gender justice with contextualized methodologies. She received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, and an investigator on the NASA Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). You can learn more about her here.
The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences congratulates Dr. Sumner on this milestone!