Adam C. Martiny

Professor, Department of Earth System Science

Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Biography

Adam C. Martiny, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Earth System Science and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. Martiny received his Ph.D. in Environmental Microbiology from the Technical University of Denmark in 2003 and completed postdoctoral training in Marine Microbiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is founder and lead coordinator of Bio-GO-SHIP, an international program quantifying climate change impacts on marine biodiversity, biogeochemistry, and ecosystem functions through global-scale oceanographic research cruises.

Martiny is an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. His research focuses on marine microbial ecology and biogeochemistry, examining how microbial communities respond to environmental change and influence ocean nutrient cycles. His work has documented latitudinal patterns in marine plankton elemental ratios, developed global-scale analyses of ocean nutrient limitation using metagenomic approaches, and characterized the biogeography and functional diversity of marine cyanobacteria including *Prochlorococcus* and *Synechococcus*.

Martiny has served in multiple leadership roles including co-chair of the Ocean Sciences Meeting, member of the Steering Committee for the U.S. Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry program, and director of UCI OCEANS. He has received two Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education awards and the NOPP Partnership Excellence interagency award. Martiny serves as Associate Editor for AGU Global Biogeochemical Cycles and on the Editorial Board of the ISME Journal.

Education

M.S. in Chemical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2000
Ph.D. in Environmental Microbiology, Technical University of Denmark, 2003

Distinctions

NOPP Partnership Excellence interagency award, 2025
Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, 2025
Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, 2025
Fellow of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, 2020
Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education award, 2011, 2021
First Prize Award, Applied Biosystems , 2006

Areas of Expertise

Marine Microbial Biogeochemistry
Phytoplankton Elemental Stoichiometry
Prochlorococcus Genomic Adaptation
Ocean Nutrient Limitation
Global Ocean Biodiversity Patterns
Climate Change Microbial Succession
Respiration Quotient Dynamics

Recent Publications

Martiny A.C., “Long-Term Reorganization of Ocean Nutrient Distribution” (opens in new tab), Agu Advances, vol. 7, 2026.
Kodama T., Martiny A.C., Hashihama F., Furuya K., “Spatial Patterns and Regulation of Nanomolar-Level Nutrients in the Surface Oligotrophic Oceans” (opens in new tab), Global Biogeochemical Cycles, vol. 40, 2026.
Sullivan M.R., Primeau F.W., Seo H., Camps-Castella J., Inomura K., Martiny A.C., “Decoupled timescales of organic carbon and phosphorus recycling in the global ocean” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 123, 2026.
AA Larkin, ML Brock, AJ Fagan, AR Moreno, SD Gerace, LE Lees, SA Suarez, EA Eloe-Fadrosh, AC Martiny, “Climate-driven succession in marine microbiome biodiversity and biogeochemical function” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 16, 2025.
SD Gerace, J Yu, JK Moore, AC Martiny, “Observed declines in upper ocean phosphate-to-nitrate availability” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 122, 2025.
ML Brock, AA Larkin, AC Martiny, “Roles of physical disturbance and biome properties in shaping microbial communities within Indian Ocean eddies” (opens in new tab), Isme Communications, vol. 5, 2025.
J Yu, KM Krumhardt, JK Moore, RT Letscher, S Wang, NA Wiseman, MC Long, KT Lindsay, M Levy, C Petrik, AC Martiny, “Ecosystem composition and biogeochemical cycles: Community Earth System Model Simulations with multiple plankton functional types”, J. Adv. Model Earth Syst., 2025.
SA Suarez, AA Larkin, ML Brock, AR Moreno, AJ Fagan, AC Martiny, “Metagenomics reveals dynamic coastal ocean reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes” (opens in new tab), Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, vol. 13, 2025.
Liu et al., “Global-scale shifts in marine ecological stoichiometry” (opens in new tab), Nature Geoscience, vol. 18, pp. 769-778, 2025.
A Nguyen, LJ Ustick, AA Larkin, AC Martiny, “Global phylogeography and microdiversity of the marine diazotrophic cyanobacteria Trichodesmium and UCYN-A” (opens in new tab), MSystems, vol. 10, 2025.
ML Brock, J Tavares-Reager, J Dong, AA Larkin, T Lam, N Pineda, C Olivares, KM Mackey, AC Martiny, “Bacterial response to the 2021 Orange County, California oil spill was episodic but subtle relative to natural fluctuations” (opens in new tab), Microbiology Spectrum, vol. 13, 2025.
Moreno A.R., Fagan A.J., Martiny A.C., “Coastal nitrogen drives respiration quotient in the Southern California Bight” (opens in new tab), Biogeosciences, vol. 22, pp. 7915-7927, 2025.
Yu J., Krumhardt K.M., Keith Moore J., Letscher R.T., Wang S., Wiseman N.A., Long M.C., Lindsay K., Levy M., Petrik C.M., Martiny A.C., “Simulating Marine Ecosystem Dynamics and Biogeochemical Cycling With Multiple Plankton Functional Types” (opens in new tab), Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, vol. 17, 2025.
SA Suarez, AC Martiny, “Intraspecific variation in antibiotic resistance potential within E. coli” (opens in new tab), Microbiology Spectrum, vol. 12, 2024.
JT Lennon et al., “Priorities, opportunities, and challenges for integrating microorganisms into Earth system models for climate change prediction” (opens in new tab), MBio, vol. 15, 2024.
G Piton, SA Allison, M Bahram, F Hildebrand, JBH Martiny, KK Treseder, AC Martiny, “Microbial dark matter could add uncertainties to metagenomic trait estimations” (opens in new tab), Nature Microbiology, vol. 9, pp. 1431-1433, 2024.
NS Garcia, M Du, M Guindani, MR McIlvin, DM Moran, MA Saito, AC Martiny, “Proteome trait regulation of marine Synechococcus elemental stoichiometry under global change” (opens in new tab), Isme Journal, vol. 18, 2024.
R Harcourt, N Garcia, AC Martiny, “Intraspecific trait variation modulates the temperature effect on elemental quotas and stoichiometry in marine Synechococcus” (opens in new tab), PLoS One, vol. 19, 2024.

Most Cited Publications

P Flombaum, JL Gallegos, RA Gordillo, J Rincón, LL Zabala, N Jiao, DM Karl, WKW Li, MW Lomas, D Veneziano, CS Vera, JA Vrugt, AC Martiny, “Present and future global distributions of the marine Cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 110, pp. 9824-9829, 2013.
AA Malik, JBH Martiny, EL Brodie, AC Martiny, KK Treseder, SD Allison, “Defining trait-based microbial strategies with consequences for soil carbon cycling under climate change” (opens in new tab), Isme Journal, vol. 14, pp. 1-9, 2019.
JBH Martiny, S Jones, JT Lennon, AC Martiny, “Microbiomes in light of traits: a phylogenetic perspective” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 350, 2015.
M Nelson, AC Martiny, JBH Martiny, “Global biogeography of microbial nitrogen-cycling traits in soil” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 113, pp. 8033-8040, 2016.
AC Martiny, CTA Pham, FW Primeau, JA Vrugt, JK Moore, SA Levin, MW Lomas, “Strong latitudinal patterns in the elemental ratios of marine plankton and organic matter” (opens in new tab), Nature Geoscience, vol. 6, pp. 279-283, 2013.
AC Martiny, KK Treseder, G Pusch, “Phylogenetic conservatism of functional traits in microorganisms” (opens in new tab), Isme Journal, vol. 7, pp. 830–838, 2013.
G Kettler, AC Martiny, K Huang, JJ Zucker, ML Coleman, S Rodrigue, F Chen, A Lapidus, S Ferriera, J Johnson, C Steglich, P Richardson, GM Church, SW Chisholm, “Patterns and Implications of Gene Gain and Loss in the Evolution of Prochlorococcus” (opens in new tab), Plos Genetics, vol. 3, pp. e231, 2007.
SD Allison, Y Lu, C Weihe, ML Goulden, AC Martiny, KK Treseder, JBH Martiny, “Microbial abundance and composition influence litter decomposition response to environmental change” (opens in new tab), Ecology, vol. 94, pp. 714–725, 2013.
K Zhang, AC Martiny, NB Reppas, KW Barry, J Malek, SW Chisholm, GM Church, “Sequencing of genomes from single cells with polymerase cloning” (opens in new tab), Nature Biotechnology, vol. 24, pp. 680-686, 2006.
SI Glassman, C Weihe, J Li, MBN Albright, C Looby, AC Martiny, KK Treseder, SD Allison, JBH Martiny, “Decomposition responses to climate depend on microbial community composition” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 115, pp. 11994-11999, 2018.

Contact Information

Website: https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/martinylab/

Email: amartiny@uci.edu

Phone: (949) 824-9713, 1458

Address: 1311 Croul Hall

This profile was created with the help of AI.

Last updated on 4/24/2026.