James Ammerman
Adjunct Professor
Science Coordinator–USEPA Long Island Sound Study
New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission
Education:
Ph.D.1983
- University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
Research Topics:
Aquatic microbial ecology and biogeochemistry; estuarine, coastal, and open ocean
phosphorus cycling; coastal eutrophication and hypoxia; molecular biology of microbial
phosphorus assimilation; instrument development and automation; academic leadership
and administration; research administration.
- Bio/Research
Bio/Research
In contrast to freshwater environments where phosphorus is usually limiting, nitrogen and iron are the first nutrients considered when evaluating marine or estuarine productivity. However, the significance of phosphorus as a limiting nutrient in certain marine and estuarine environments has been more widely demonstrated in recent years. This is particularly true in estuarine and coastal environments with high nitrogen loading. Viewed globally, phosphorus is increasingly considered a scarce resource, as phosphorus fertilizer cannot be industrially produced like ammonia, and is therefore mined in Florida and elsewhere. My research interests have long focused on phosphorus biogeochemistry and microbial phosphorus assimilation in marine and estuarine environments, producing several highly-cited studies demonstrating the importance of phosphorus limitation in both estuarine and river-dominated coastal environments, such as the Chesapeake Bay the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in the oligotrophic Sargasso Sea. Though several studies of mine and others had suggested phosphorus limitation of primary productivity on the Louisiana Shelf in the 1990s due to the high nitrogen loading, it was our 2006 paper in Environmental Science and Technology which first clearly established the significance of this phosphorus limitation and its importance to the formation of the annual summer Gulf of Mexico “dead zone”. In 2006 I gave an invited presentation of this data to the Hypoxia Advisory Panel of the EPA Science Advisory Board and this 2006 paper was cited throughout their 2007 volume Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico, An Update by the EPA Science Advisory Board. As a result of this report, the 2008 Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan for the first time developed a numerical target for the reduction of riverine total phosphorus as well as total nitrogen, calling for a 45% reduction of both; however recent data suggests that both are actually increasing.
Awards and Honors
Director’s Award for Collaborative Integration (Program Manager, Life in Extreme Environments Team), National Science Foundation, 1997
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Biological Sciences, 1996
Lindeman Award, American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, 1986 (annual award given for outstanding aquatic science paper published by a young scientist; for Ammerman and Azam, 1985)
Antarctic Service Medal, National Science Foundation, 1979
- Publications
Publications
Publications Since 2006
2006
Sylvan J.B, Dortch Q, Nelson D.M., Brown A.M., Morrison W., and Ammerman J.W. Phosphorus limits phytoplankton growth on the Louisiana shelf during hypoxia formation. Environmental Science & Technology. 40: 7548-7553 10.1021/es061417t.
2007
Dyhrman, S.T., J.W. Ammerman, and B.A.S. Van Mooy. Microbes and the marine phosphorus cycle. Oceanography Magazine. 20(2): 110-116.
Sylvan J.B, Quigg A., Tozzi S., and Ammerman J.W. Eutrophication-induced phosphorus limitation in the Mississippi River Plume: Evidence from fast repetition rate fluorometry. Limnology and Oceanography. 52(6): 2679-2685.
Dagg, M.J., Ammerman, J.W, Amon, R.M.W., Gardner, W.S., Green, R.E., and Lohrenz, S.E. A review of water column processes influencing hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Estuaries and Coasts. 30(5): 735-752.
Gaas, B.M. and J.W. Ammerman. Automated high resolution ectoenzyme measurements: instrument development and deployment in three trophic regimes. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods. 5:463-473.
2008
Chichester, K.D., M. Sebastian, J.W. Ammerman, and C.L. Colyer. Enzymatic assay of marine bacterial phosphatases by capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence detection. Electrophoresis 29(18): 3810-3816.
2009
Sebastian, M. and J.W. Ammerman. The alkaline phosphatase PhoX is more widely distributed in marine bacteria than the classical PhoA. ISME Journal 3(5): 563-572.
S.A. Jaeger, G.P. Klinkhammer, B.M. Gaas, and J.W. Ammerman. Design, assessment, and use of the multiple-enzyme analyzer (MEA), a tool for in situ monitoring of marine microbial activity. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods. 7: 716-729.
Casey, John R., M.W. Lomas, V.K. Michelou, S.T. Dyhrman, E.D. Orchard, J.W. Ammerman, and J.B. Sylvan. Phytoplankton taxon-specific orthophosphate (Pi) and ATP utilization in the western subtropical North Atlantic. Aquatic Microbial Ecology 58(1): 31-44.
2010
Lomas, M.W., A.L. Burke, D. A. Lomas, D.W. Bell, C. Shen, S.T. Dyhrman, and J.W. Ammerman. Sargasso Sea phosphorus biogeochemistry: an important role for dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP). Biogeosciences 7(2): 695-710.
Orchard, E. D., Ammerman, J.W., Lomas, M. W., and Dyhrman, S. T. Dissolved inorganic and organic phosphorus uptake in Trichodesmium and the microbial community: The importance of phosphorus ester in the Sargasso Sea. Limnology and Oceanography 55: 1390-1399 DOI: 10.4319/lo.2010.55.3.1390.
2011
Quigg, A., J.B. Sylvan, A.B. Gustafson, T. R. Fisher, S. Tozzi, and J. W. Ammerman. Going west: role of phosphorus limitation in expanding the primary production across the Louisiana shelf. Aquatic Geochemistry DOI 10.1007/s10498-011-9134-3.
J.B. Sylvan, A. Quigg, S. Tozzi, and J. W. Ammerman. Mapping phytoplankton community physiology on a river impacted continental shelf: testing a multifaceted approach. Estuaries and Coasts. DOI 10.1007/s12237-011-9415-5.
Sebastian M.; Ammerman J. W. Role of the phosphatase PhoX in the phosphorus metabolism of the marine bacterium Ruegeria pomeroyi DSS-3. Environmental Microbiology Reports 3:535-542 DOI: 10.1111/j.1758-2229.2011.00253.x.
2012
M.J. Harke, D.L. Berry, J.W. Ammerman, and C.J. Gobler. Molecular response of the bloom-forming cyanobacterium, Microcystis aeruginosa, to phosphorus limitation. Microbial Ecology 63:188-198 DOI 10.1007/s00248-011-9894-8.
2013
Orcutt, K.M., K. Gundersen, and J.W. Ammerman. Intense ectoenzyme activities associated with Trichodesmium colonies in the Sargasso Sea. Marine Ecology Progress Series 478:101-113, doi 10.3354/meps10153
Sylvan, J.B. and J. W. Ammerman. Seasonal distributions of organic nutrients on the Louisiana continental shelf and their implications for nutrient limitation and hypoxia formation. Marine Chemistry 154:113-123.
2014
Sylvan, J.B. and J. W. Ammerman. Corrigendum to “Seasonal distributions of organic nutrients on the Louisiana continental shelf and their implications for nutrient limitation and hypoxia formation” [MARCHE: 154C (2013) 113–123]. Marine Chemistry 164:130.
- Links
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