Zoe G. Cardon

Senior Scientist
Tel: 508.289.7473 | Fax: 508.457.1548
E-mail: zcardon@mbl.edu
Ph.D., Stanford University 1994;
B.S., Biology; B.A., Spanish, Utah State University 1988
Curriculum Vitae: Full CV (PDF)
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8725-7842
Research Statement
Cardon is an ecosystems ecologist with roots in mechanistic plant physiology. She is fascinated by how plants contribute to ecosystem function both aboveground (as primary producers and gatekeepers of water flow from biosphere to atmosphere) and belowground (particularly as partners with microbes and soils in the fundamental terrestrial commodities exchange -- the rhizosphere). Her work is interdisciplinary and collaborative, combining development of genetically engineered microbiosensors, in situ imaging, and stable isotope techniques, with emerging systems modeling, organismal, and “omics” approaches.
Selected Publications
Photosynthesis and desiccation tolerance:
Peredo EL and Cardon ZG (2020) Shared up-regulation and contrasting down-regulation of gene expression distinguish desiccation-tolerant from intolerant green algae. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 117 (29) 17438-17445. doi:10.1073/pnas.1906904117
Stark JR, Cardon ZG, Peredo EL (2019) Extraction of high-quality, high molecular-weight DNA depends heavily on cell homogenization methods in green microalgae. Applications in Plant Sciences. 8(3):e11333. doi:10.1002/aps3.1133
Cardon ZG, Peredo EL, Dohnalkova AC, Gershone HL, Bezanilla M. (2018) A model suite of green algae within the Scenedesmaceae for investigating contrasting desiccation tolerance and morphology. Journal of Cell Science. 131: jcs212233 doi: 10.1242/jcs.212233
Soils and microbes:
Li H, Bölscher T, Winnick M, Tfaily MM, Cardon ZG, and Keiluweit M. (2021) Simple plant and microbial metabolites destabilize mineral-associated organic matter via multiple pathways. Environmental Science and Technology 55(5): 3389–3398 doi: 10.1021/acs.est.0c04592
Fu C, Wang G, Bible K, Goulden ML, Saleska SR, Scott RL, Cardon ZG. (2018) Hydraulic redistribution affects modeled carbon cycling via soil microbial activity and suppressed fire. Global Change Biology 24(8):3472-3485.DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14164
Espeleta JF, Cardon ZG, Mayer KU, Neumann RB. (2016) Diel plant water use and competitive soil cation exchange interact to enhance NH₄+and K+availability in the rhizosphere. Plant and Soil 414:33. doi: 10.1007/s11104-016-3089-5
Fu C, Wang G, Goulden ML, Scott RL, Bible K, and Cardon ZG. (2016) Modeling the hydrological impact of hydraulic redistribution using CLM4.5 at eight AmeriFlux Sites. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 20:2001-2018. doi:10.5194/hess-20-2001-2016
Graves CJ, Makrides E, Schmidt V, Giblin A, Cardon ZG, Rand D. (2016) Functional responses of salt marsh microbial communities to long-term nutrient enrichment. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 82:2862-2871.
Blaser MJ, Cardon ZG, Cho MK, Dangl JL, Donohue TJ, Green JL, Knight R, Maxon ME, Northen TR, Pollard KS, Brodie EL. (2016) Towards a predictive understanding of Earth's microbiomes to address 21st Century challenges. mBio. 7:e00714-16. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00714-16
Biteen JS, Blainey PC, Cardon ZG, Chun M, Church G, Dorrestein PC, Fraser SE, Gilbert J, Jansson JK, Knight R, Miller JF, Ozcan A, Prather KA, Taha S, Ven den Engh G, Quake S, Ruby EG, Silver P, Weiss PS, Wong GCL, Wright AT, Xie XS, Young TD (2016) Tools for the Microbiome: Nano and Beyond. ACS Nano, 10:6-37. DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b07826.