Karl Romanowicz

Advisor

George Kling

Background

Karl is a microbial ecologist pursuing his doctoral degree in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. He received his BS and MS in Applied Ecology from Michigan Technological University and an additional MS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Michigan. His research investigates the functional response of microbial communities to global climate change and how those responses influence ecosystem processes. His work draws on biochemistry, microbiology, and ecology from the molecular to the ecosystem scale.

His past studies have characterized shifts in the distribution of microbial communities in peatland soils and the mechanisms regulating their enzymatic capabilities in response to environmental change. In temperate forests, he examined the long-term effects of chronic nitrogen deposition on the composition of bacterial and fungal communities and the loss of lignin-decaying peroxidase enzymes in saprotrophic fungi that has led to greater soil carbon storage. He also discovered that invasive earthworms thrive under elevated soil nitrogen conditions, possibly reversing soil carbon gains through increased consumption of the forest floor.

Currently, his focus is on the microbial response to permafrost thaw in arctic tundra, specifically how microbial composition differs through the soil profile from the annually-thawed active layer to the deep permafrost and the implications these community differences have on their functional potential to transform newly released carbon substrates.

Publications

Romanowicz KJ, Crump BC, Kling GW. 2021. Rainfall alters permafrost soil redox conditions, but meta-omics show divergent microbial community responses by tundra type in the Arctic. Soil Systems 5(1), 1-30.

Zak DR, Argiroff WA, Freedman ZB, Upchurch RA, Entwistle EM, Romanowicz KJ. 2019. Anthropogenic N deposition, fungal gene expression, and an increasing soil carbon sink in the Northern Hemisphere. Ecology 100(10): e02804.

Entwistle EM, Romanowicz KJ, Argiroff WA, Freedman ZB, Morris JJ, Zak DR. 2018. Anthropogenic N deposition alters the composition of expressed class II fungal peroxidases. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 84(9): e02816-17.

Romanowicz KJ, Zak DR. 2017. Activity of an introduced earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) increases under future rates of atmospheric nitrogen deposition in northern temperate forests. Applied Soil Ecology 120C: 206-210.

Lamit LJ, Romanowicz KJ, Potvin LR, Rivers A, Singh K, Lennon JT, Tringe SG, Kane ES, Lilleskov EA. 2017. Patterns and drivers of fungal community depth stratification in Sphagnum peat. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 93(7): fix082.

Romanowicz KJ, Freedman ZB, Upchurch RA, Argiroff WA, Zak DR. 2016. Active microorganisms in forest soils differ from the total community yet are shaped by the same environmental factors: the influence of pH and soil moisture. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 92(10): fiw149. *Editor’s Choice

Romanowicz KJ, Kane ES, Potvin LR, Kolka RK, Lilleskov EA. 2015. Understanding drivers of peatland extracellular enzyme activity in the PEATcosm experiment: mixed evidence for enzymic latch hypothesis. Plant and Soil 397: 371-386.

Freedman ZB, Romanowicz KJ, Upchurch RA, Zak DR. 2015. Differential responses of total and active soil microbial communities to long-term experimental N deposition. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 90: 275-282.