Jerome Blewett

I am a biogeochemist studying the interactions between microbial life and the environment. In particular, I am interested in microorganisms across different ecosystems that produce or consume greenhouse gases (e.g., methane, nitrous oxide), and seek to understand the factors that drive their distribution, physiology and metabolic activity. To this end, I combine approaches from stable isotope and organic geochemistry, microbial physiology, and molecular biology.

A large part of my research uses microcosm experiments, artificial microbial ecosystems based on natural samples set up in the laboratory, that can be experimentally manipulated and spiked with stable isotope labelled substrates. Tracing the incorporation of these isotopically labelled compounds by microorganisms into various metabolites, under a range of simulated environmental conditions, can provide key insights into how microbial communities and their production of greenhouse gases respond to a broad range of environmental changes (e.g., temperature, vegetation, pollution, etc).

At present, a large focus of my work is on using these tools to characterize the drivers of methane in wetlands, environments that represent the largest natural source of this potent greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Ultimately, understanding the ‘black-box’ of microbial life in these and other environments is a pre-requisite to accurately predicting their response, or feedbacks, to climate change, and/or other human activities, as well as their contribution to the development of the Earth system through evolutionary time.

Outside of the lab, I continue to work in the science-policy sphere, focusing especially on translating environmental and climate science to a policy audience, and exploring the ways that science and evidence are used in national and international policy.