Dr. Federico Baltar | 点亮海洋黑暗碳固定

Federico Baltar is a Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Ocean University, China. Before that, he worked as a Postdoc in Sweden (Linneaus University), Lecturer and Senior lecturer in New Zealand (University of Otago), as well as Assistant and Associate Professor in Austria (University of Vienna). Prof. Federico Baltar’s research interests are in biological oceanography integrating marine microbial ecology and biogeochemistry. Prof. Federico Baltar’s research group studies the factors that control the functioning of oceanic microbes, including bacteria, archaea and fungi, to get a mechanistic understanding of this microbial engine today, and predict how it might change in the future ocean. Prof. Federico Baltar received his PhD in 2010 and has published > 105 publications in international journals, including Cell, Nature Microbiology, Nature Communications, PNAS, Science Advances, Microbiome, The ISME Journal, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Annual Review of Marine Sciences, among others. He has secured funding of > 4.8 million EUR in the last 10 years. Prof. Federico Baltar’s GoogleScholar Citations number > 5300 and his Hirsch index is 43. He has received several research-related awards, including among others, the Outstanding Young Scientist in Biogeosciences Award (European Geosciences Union - EGU), the Rutherford Discovery Fellowship (from the Royal Society of New Zealand), the 2021 international JoF Young Investigator Award, and the Shanghai Magnolia Talent Program.

Dark inorganic carbon (DIC) fixation represents a globally significant yet routinely overlooked component of ocean primary production, capable of increasing total marine PP estimates by up to 22% when accounted for. Beyond its quantitative contribution, dark DIC fixation sustains heterotrophic microbial metabolism in the deep ocean and influences carbon sequestration pathways distinct from the classical biological pump. However, the energy sources that fuel this process in the dark ocean remain poorly understood. In this talk, I will present novel research identifying unexpected electron donors and metabolic strategies that underpin dark DIC fixation across the ocean water column. Using integrated multi-omic and biogeochemical approaches, our findings challenge prevailing paradigms of deep-ocean energy limitation and provide a revised framework for understanding dark DIC fixation as a central pillar of marine carbon cycling.