Bess B. Ward

About

Bess B. Ward is the William J. Sinclair Professor of Geosciences and a faculty member at The High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University. Her research focuses on the marine and global nitrogen cycle, utilizing molecular biological investigations of marine bacteria and bacterial processes, particularly nitrification and denitrification. She measures the rates of nitrogen transformation processes using various isotope approaches. Her ongoing research includes studying nitrogen cycling in suboxic zones of the world ocean such as the Arabian Sea, Eastern Tropical North and South Pacific, as well as in Chesapeake Bay and Great Sippewissett Salt Marsh. Additionally, her work explores nitrogen assimilation by phytoplankton and the functional diversity of eukaryotic phytoplankton in the ocean, along with the diversity of bacterial functional guilds involved in the nitrogen cycle of aquatic systems.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Biology
• Oceanography
• Earth science
• Geology

Selected publications

• Global Nitrogen Cycle: Critical Enzymes, Organisms, and Processes for Nitrogen Budgets and Dynamics

  Chemical Reviews · 2020 · 454 citations

  Nitrogen (N) is used in many of life’s fundamental biomolecules, and it is also a participant in environmental redox chemistry. Biogeochemical processes control the amount and form of N available to organisms (“fixed” N). These interacting processes result in N acting as the proximate limiting nutrient in most surface environments. Here, we review the global biogeochemical cycle of N and its anthropogenic perturbation. We introduce important reservoirs and processes affecting N in the environmen…

  DOI

• Regulation of nitrous oxide production in low-oxygen waters off the coast of Peru

  Biogeosciences · 2020 · 93 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract. Oxygen-deficient zones (ODZs) are major sites of net natural nitrous oxide (N2O) production and emissions. In order to understand changes in the magnitude of N2O production in response to global change, knowledge on the individual contributions of the major microbial pathways (nitrification and denitrification) to N2O production and their regulation is needed. In the ODZ in the coastal area off Peru, the sensitivity of N2O production to oxygen and organic matter was investigated using…

  DOI

• Nitrite oxidation exceeds reduction and fixed nitrogen loss in anoxic Pacific waters

  Marine Chemistry · 2020 · 77 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  The diversity of nitrogen-based dissimilatory metabolisms in anoxic waters continues to increase with additional studies to the marine oxygen deficient zones (ODZs). Although the microbial oxidation of nitrite (NO2–) has been known for over a century, studies of the pathways and microbes involved have generally proceeded under the assumption that nitrite oxidation to nitrate requires dioxygen (O2). Anaerobic NO2– oxidation until now has been conclusively shown only for anammox bacteria, albeit o…

  DOI

• Microbial N2O consumption in and above marine N2O production hotspots

  The ISME Journal · 2020 · 67 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  O budget.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nitrous oxide production in the Chesapeake Bay

  Limnology and Oceanography · 2022 · 38 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Estuaries at the global scale are significant but highly uncertain sources of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N 2 O), which is an intense greenhouse gas and ozone depletion agent. As the largest estuary in the United States, the Chesapeake Bay is suggested to be a spatially and temporally variable source and sink of N 2 O. However, limited observations of N 2 O cycling preclude us from estimating and predicting its net N 2 O flux. To improve our mechanistic understanding of the processes tha…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Microbial Ecology of Nitrogen Cycling in the Oxygen Minimum Zone of the Arabian Sea

  NSF · $396k · 2004–2008

• Dimensions: Collaborative Research: Functional Diversity of Marine Eukaryotic Phytoplankton and Their Contributions to the C and N Cycling

  NSF · $1.4M · 2012–2016

• Collaborative Research: Mechanisms and Controls of Nitrous Oxide Production in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean

  NSF · $699k · 2017–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Amal Jayakumar

  Princeton University

  56 shared

• Xin Sun

  Carnegie Institution for Science

  52 shared

• Claudia Frey

  University of Basel

  36 shared

• Xianhui Wan

  Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics

  30 shared

• Andrew R. Babbin

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  29 shared

• Sarah E. Fawcett

  University of Cape Town

  26 shared

• Osvaldo Ulloa

  22 shared

• Andreas Oschlies

  GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel

  20 shared

Labs

• Vecchi Research GroupPI

Similar researchers at Princeton University

• Daniel M. Sigmanh-106
• Michael Oppenheimerh-103
• Jeroen Tromph-77