About

Noah Fierer is the Principal Investigator at Fierer Lab, focusing on microbial ecology and environmental microbiology. His research encompasses a broad range of topics including soil microbial ecology, plant-soil interactions, aerobiology, microbial dispersal, and methods development related to microbial ecology. His work aims to understand the roles and dynamics of microbial communities in various environments, contributing to the broader understanding of microbial functions and interactions in ecological systems.

Research topics

• Biology
• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Soil science
• Chemistry
• Environmental chemistry
• Agronomy
• Organic chemistry
• Food science
• Mathematics
• Genetics
• Botany

Selected publications

• The interplay between microbial communities and soil properties

  Nature Reviews Microbiology · 2023 · 1168 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Ecology
  • Environmental science
  • Biology
  DOI

• The diversity and function of sourdough starter microbiomes

  eLife · 2021 · 197 citations

  • Biology
  • Food science
  • Ecology

  Humans have relied on sourdough starter microbial communities to make leavened bread for thousands of years, but only a small fraction of global sourdough biodiversity has been characterized. Working with a community-scientist network of bread bakers, we determined the microbial diversity of 500 sourdough starters from four continents. In sharp contrast with widespread assumptions, we found little evidence for biogeographic patterns in starter communities. Strong co-occurrence patterns observed in situ and recreated in vitro demonstrate that microbial interactions shape sourdough community structure. Variation in dough rise rates and aromas were largely explained by acetic acid bacteria, a mostly overlooked group of sourdough microbes. Our study reveals the extent of microbial diversity in an ancient fermented food across diverse cultural and geographic backgrounds.

  PublisherDOI

• Nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization consistently favor pathogenic over mutualistic fungi in grassland soils

  Nature Communications · 2021 · 300 citations

  • Ecology
  • Biology
  • Agronomy

  Ecosystems across the globe receive elevated inputs of nutrients, but the consequences of this for soil fungal guilds that mediate key ecosystem functions remain unclear. We find that nitrogen and phosphorus addition to 25 grasslands distributed across four continents promotes the relative abundance of fungal pathogens, suppresses mutualists, but does not affect saprotrophs. Structural equation models suggest that responses are often indirect and primarily mediated by nutrient-induced shifts in plant communities. Nutrient addition also reduces co-occurrences within and among fungal guilds, which could have important consequences for belowground interactions. Focusing only on plots that received no nutrient addition, soil properties influence pathogen abundance globally, whereas plant community characteristics influence mutualists, and climate influence saprotrophs. We show consistent, guild-level responses that enhance our ability to predict shifts in soil function related to anthropogenic eutrophication, which can have longer-term consequences for plant communities.

  DOI

• Effects of Spatial Variability and Relic DNA Removal on the Detection of Temporal Dynamics in Soil Microbial Communities

  mBio · 2020 · 120 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Environmental science
  • Ecology
  • Biology

  Nearly all microbial communities are dynamic in time. Understanding how temporal dynamics in microbial community structure affect soil biogeochemistry and fertility are key to being able to predict the responses of the soil microbiome to environmental perturbations. Here, we explain the effects of soil spatial structure and relic DNA on the determination of microbial community fluctuations over time. We found that intensive spatial sampling was required to identify temporal effects in microbial communities because of the high degree of spatial heterogeneity in soil and that DNA from nonliving sources masks important temporal patterns. We identified groups of microbes with shared temporal responses and show that these patterns were predictable from changes in soil characteristics. These results provide insight into the environmental preferences and temporal relationships between individual microbial taxa and highlight the importance of considering relic DNA when trying to detect temporal dynamics in belowground communities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The global-scale distributions of soil protists and their contributions to belowground systems

  Science Advances · 2020 · 512 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Ecology
  • Biology
  • Botany

  Protists are ubiquitous in soil, where they are key contributors to nutrient cycling and energy transfer. However, protists have received far less attention than other components of the soil microbiome. We used amplicon sequencing of soils from 180 locations across six continents to investigate the ecological preferences of protists and their functional contributions to belowground systems. We complemented these analyses with shotgun metagenomic sequencing of 46 soils to validate the identities of the more abundant protist lineages. We found that most soils are dominated by consumers, although parasites and phototrophs are particularly abundant in tropical and arid ecosystems, respectively. The best predictors of protist composition (primarily annual precipitation) are fundamentally distinct from those shaping bacterial and archaeal communities (namely, soil pH). Some protists and bacteria co-occur globally, highlighting the potential importance of these largely undescribed belowground interactions. Together, this study allowed us to identify the most abundant and ubiquitous protists living in soil, with our work providing a cross-ecosystem perspective on the factors structuring soil protist communities and their likely contributions to soil functioning.

  DOI

• Volatile organic compounds from leaf litter decomposition alter soil microbial communities and carbon dynamics

  Ecology · 2020 · 75 citations

  • Environmental chemistry
  • Chemistry
  • Environmental science

  C-labeled leaf litter into soil carbon fractions where the decomposing litters were only sharing headspace with the soil samples, thus preventing direct contact and aqueous movement of litter carbon. We also determined the effects of these litter-derived VOCs on soil microbial community structure. We demonstrated that the litter VOCs contributed to all measured soil carbon pools. Specifically, VOC-derived carbon accounted for 2.0, 0.61, 0.18, and 0.08% of carbon in the microbial biomass, dissolved organic matter, mineral-associated organic matter, and particulate organic matter pools, respectively. We also show that litter-derived VOCs can affect soil bacterial and fungal community diversity and composition. These findings highlight the importance of an underappreciated pathway where VOCs alter soil microbial communities and carbon dynamics.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Continental-scale patterns of extracellular enzyme activity in the subsoil: an overlooked reservoir of microbial activity

  Environmental Research Letters · 2020 · 73 citations

  • Soil science
  • Environmental science
  • Environmental chemistry

  Abstract Chemical stabilization of microbial-derived products such as extracellular enzymes (EE) onto mineral surfaces has gained attention as a possibly important mechanism leading to the persistence of soil organic carbon (SOC). While the controls on EE activities and their stabilization in the surface soil are reasonably well-understood, how these activities change with soil depth and possibly diverge from those at the soil surface due to distinct physical, chemical, and biotic conditions remains unclear. We assessed EE activity to a depth of 1 m (10 cm increments) in 19 soil profiles across the Critical Zone Observatory Network, which represents a wide range of climates, soil orders, and vegetation types. For all EEs, activities per mass of soil correlated positively with microbial biomass (MB) and SOC, and all three of these variables decreased logarithmically with depth ( p < 0.05). Across all sites, over half of the potential EE activities per mass soil consistently occurred below 20 cm for all measured EEs. Activities per unit MB or SOC were substantially higher at depth (soils below 20 cm accounted for 80% of whole-profile EE activity), suggesting an accumulation of stabilized (i.e. mineral sorbed) EEs in subsoil horizons. The pronounced enzyme stabilization in subsurface horizons was corroborated by mixed-effects models that showed a significant, positive relationship between clay concentration and MB-normalized EE activities in the subsoil. Furthermore, the negative relationships between soil C, N, and P and C-, N-, and P-acquiring EEs found in the surface soil decoupled below 20 cm, which could have also been caused by EE stabilization. This finding suggests that EEs may not reflect soil nutrient availabilities deeper in the soil profile. Taken together, our results suggest that deeper soil horizons hold a significant reservoir of EEs, and that the controls of subsoil EEs differ from their surface soil counterparts.

  DOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: ANT LIA Integrating Genomic and Phenotypic Analyses to understand Microbial Life in Antarctic Soils

  NSF · $1.0M · 2022–2026

• Collaborative Research: Do expected evolutionary trade-offs in enzyme activities manifest at the level of microbial community function?

  NSF · $269k · 2010–2015

• Dimensions: Collaborative research: Community genomic drivers of moss microbiome assembly and function in rapidly changing Alaskan ecosystems

  NSF · $553k · 2015–2022

• NSFDEB-BSF: Sources, controls, and significance of soil geosmin emissions in dryland ecosystems

  NSF · $876k · 2021–2025

• DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Do gut microbiota affect caterpillar herbivory and fitness?

  NSF · $16k · 2016–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Rob Knight

  University of California, San Diego

  200 shared

• Jonathan W. Leff

  University of Colorado Boulder

  127 shared

• Christian L. Lauber

  95 shared

• Robert R. Dunn

  84 shared

• Albert Barberán

  University of Arizona

  70 shared

• Jack A. Gilbert

  University of California, San Diego

  67 shared

• J. Gregory Caporaso

  Translational Genomics Research Institute

  62 shared

• Manuel Delgado‐Baquerizo

  Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla

  54 shared

Similar researchers at University of Colorado Boulder

• Jose-Luis Jimenezh-233
• Joost de Gouwh-186
• Roy Parkerh-161
• Kristi S. Ansethh-159
• Thomas R. Cechh-156