Ferran Garcia-Pichel
Regents Professor, School of Life Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
School of Life Sciences
Arizona State University
PO Box 874501
Tempe, AZ 85287-4501
Titles
- Regents Professor, School of Life Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
- Affiliated Faculty, Center for Biodiversity Outcomes
Biography
Ferran Garcia-Pichel and his collaborators study the roles, adaptations, and impacts of microbes in natural environments that range from desert soils to shallow marine waters. The microbes they study play roles of ecological importance, including the formation and destruction of minerals, the prevention of soil erosion, or the biogeochemicalcycling of nutrients.
His current foci on microbial adaptations involve studying mechanisms carbonatedissolution, the production of sunscreen compounds, and the microbial ability to produce hydrogen from water. Current applied aspects of their researchincludedeveloping strategies for the sustainable recovery of degraded arid lands and searching for novel microbial capacities and products that have potential use in biomedicine and technology.
Garcia-Pichel is also interested in improving undergraduate and graduate education. He teaches entry-level microbiology, advanced microbial ecology and geomicrobiology courses.
Education
- PhD, Biology (Microbiology), University of Oregon, 1992
- MA, University of Oregon, 1988
- MS, Autonomous University, Barcelona, Spain, 1986
Journal Articles
2022
Garcia-Pichel, F. and O. E. Sala. 2022. Expanding the pulse-reserve paradigm to microorganisms on the basis of differential reserve management strategies. bioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2022.02.24.481838.
2021
Fernandes, V. M., A. Giraldo-Silva, D. Roush and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2021. Coleofasciculaceae, a monophyletic home for the Microcoleus steenstrupii complex and other desiccation-tolerant filamentous cyanobacteria. Journal of Phycology 57(5):1563-1579. DOI: 10.1111/jpy.13199. (link )
Finn, D. R., J. Maldonado, F. de Martini, J. Yu, C. R. Penton, R. S. Fontenele, K. Schmidlin, S. Kraberger, A. Varsani, G. H. Gile, B. Barker, D. R. Kollath, R. L. Muenich, P. Herckes, M. Fraser and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2021. Agricultural practices drive biological loads, seasonal patterns and potential pathogens in the aerobiome of a mixed-land-use dryland. Scence of The Total Environment 798(Dec):149239. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149239. (link )
Gonzalez-de-Salceda, L. and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2021. The allometry of cellular DNA and ribosomal gene content among microbes and its use for the assessment of microbiome community structure. BMC Microbiome 9:Art. 173. DOI: 10.1186/s40168-021-01111-z. (link )
Gonzalez-de-Salceda, L. and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2021. The allometry of cellular DNA and ribosomal gene content among microbes and its use for the assessment of microbiome community structure. Microbiome 9:Art. 173 . DOI: 10.1186/s40168-021-01111-z. (link )
Lan, S., A. D. Thomas, J. B. Rakes, F. Garcia-Pichel, L. Wu and C. Hu. 2021. Cyanobacterial community composition and their functional shifts associated with biocrust succession in the Gurbantunggut Desert. Environmental Microbiology Reports 13(6):884-898. DOI: 10.1111/1758-2229.13011. (link )
Nelson, C. and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2021. Beneficial cyanosphere heterotrophs accelerate establishment of cyanobacterial biocrust. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 87(20):e01236-21. DOI: 10.1128/AEM.01236-21. (link )
Nelson, C., A. Giraldo-Silva and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2021. A symbiotic nutrient exchange within the cyanosphere microbiome of the biocrust cyanobacterium, Microcoleus vaginatus. The ISME Journal 15:282-292. DOI: 10.1038/s41396-020-00781-1. (link )
Roush, D., A. Giraldo-Silva and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2021. Cydrasil 3, a curated 16S rRNA gene reference package and web app for cyanobacterial phylogenetic placement. Scientific Data 8:Art. 230. DOI: 10.1038/s41597-021-01015-5. (link )
Soule, T., D. Ferreira, J. Lothamer and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2021. The independent and shared transcriptomic response to UVA, UVB and oxidative stress in the cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme ATCC 29133. Photochemistry and Photobiology 97(5):1063-1071. DOI: 10.1111/php.13444. (link )
Stricker, E., G. Crain, J. Rudgers, R. Sinsabaugh, V. Fernandes, C. Nelson, A. Giraldo-Silva, F. Garcia-Pichel, J. Belnap and A. Darrouzet-Nardi. 2021. What could explain δ13C signatures in biocrust cyanobacteria of drylands?. Microbial Ecology 81:134-145. DOI: 10.1007/s00248-020-01536-3. (link )
Van Goethem, M. W., A. R. Osborn, B. P. Bowen, P. F. Andeer, T. L. Swenson, A. Clum, R. Riley, G. He, M. Koriabine, L. Sandor, M. Yan, C. G. Daum, Y. Yoshinaga, T. P. Makhalanyane, F. Garcia-Pichel, A. Visel, L. A. Pennacchio, R. C. O'Malley and T. R. Northern. 2021. Long-read metagenomics of soil communities reveals phylum-specific secondary metabolite dynamics. Communications Biology 4:Art. 1302. DOI: 10.1038/s42003-021-02809-4. (link )
2020
Antoninka, A., M. A. Bowker, N. N. Barger, J. C. Belnap, A. Giraldo-Silva, S. C. Reed, F. Garcia-Pichel and M. C. Duniway. 2020. Addressing barriers to improve biocrust colonization and establishment in dryland restoration. Restoration Ecology 28(52):5150-5159. DOI: 10.1111/rec.13052. (link )
Cao, H., Y. Shimura, M. M. Steffen, Z. Yang, J. Lu, A. Joel, L. Jenkins, M. Kawachi, Y. Yin and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2020. The trait repertoire enabling cyanobacteria to bloom assessed through comparative genomic complexity and metatranscriptomics. mBio 11(3):e01155-20. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01155-20. (link )
Chung, N., M. W. Van Goethem, M. A. Preston, F. Lhota, L. Cerna, F. Garcia-Pichel, V. M. Fernandes, A. Giraldo-Silva, H. Shin Kim, E. Hurowitz, M. Balamotis, I. Wu and T. Ben-Yehezkel. 2020. Accurate microbiome sequencing with synthetic long read sequencing. bioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2020.10.02.324038. (link )
Faist, A. M., A. Antoninka, J. C. Belnap, M. A. Bowker, M. C. Duniway, F. Garcia-Pichel, C. Nelson, S. C. Reed, A. Giraldo-Silva, S. Velazco-Ayuso and N. N. Barger. 2020. Inoculation and habitat amelioration efforts in biological soil crust recovery vary by desert and soil texture. Restoration Ecology 28(52):S96-S105. DOI: 10.1111/rec.13087. (link )
Finn, D. R., J. Yu, Z. Esra Ilhan, V. M. Fernandes, C. R. Penton, R. Krajmalnik-Brown, F. Garcia-Pichel and T. M. Vogel. 2020. MicroNiche: An R package for assessing microbial niche breadth and overlap from amplicon sequencing data. Microbiology Ecology 96(8): fiaa131. DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiaa131. (link )
Garcia-Pichel, F., J. P. Zehr, D. Bhattacharya and H. B. Pakrasi. 2020. What's in a name? The case of cyanobacteria. Journal of Phycology 56(1):1-5. DOI: 10.1111/jpy.12934. (link )
Giraldo-Silva, A., V. M. Fernandes, J. Bethany and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2020. Niche partitioning with temperature among heterocystous cyanobacteria (Scytonema spp., Nostoc spp., and Tolypothrix spp.) from biological soil crusts. Microorganisms 8(3):Art. 396. DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms8030396. (link )
Giraldo-Silva, A., C. Nelson, C. Penfold, N. N. Barger and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2020. Effect of preconditioning to the soil environment on the performance of 20 cyanobacterial strains used as inoculum for biocrust restoration. Restoration Ecology 28(52):S187-S193. DOI: 10.1111/rec.13048. (link )
Martiny, J. B., K. L. Whiteson, B. J. Bohannan, L. A. David, N. A. Hynson, M. McFall-Ngai, J. F. Rawls, T. M. Schmidt, Z. Abdo, M. J. Blaser, S. Bordenstein, C. Brechot, C. T. Bull, P. Dorrestein, J. A. Eisen, F. Garcia-Pichel, J. A. Gilbert, . , M. L. Holtz, R. Knight, D. B. Welch, D. McDonald, B. Methe, N. J. Mouncey, N. T. Mueller, C. A. Pfister, L. Proctor and J. L. Sachs. 2020. The emergence of microbiome centres. Nature Microbiology 5:2-3. DOI: 10.1038/s41564-019-0644-x. (link )
Nelson, C., A. Giraldo-Silva and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2020. A fog-irrigated soil substrate (FISS) system unifies and optimizes cyanobacterial biocrust inoculum production. Applied and Environmental Microbiology Art. 00624-20. DOI: 10.1128/AEM.00624-20. (link )
Roush, D. and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2020. Succession and colonization dynamics of endolithic phototrophs within intertidal carbonates. Microorganisms 8(2):Art. 214. DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms8020214. (link )
Thomazo, C., E. Couradeau, A. Giraldo-Silva, J. Marin-Carbonne, A. Brayard, M. Homann, P. Sansjofre, S. V. Lalonde and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2020. Biological soil crusts as modern analogues for the Archean Continental Biosphere: Insights from carbon and nitrogen isotopes. Astrobiology 20(7):815–819. DOI: 10.1089/ast.2019.2144. (link )
Velazco-Ayuso, S., A. Giraldo-Silva, N. N. Barger and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2020. Microbial inoculum production for biocrust restoration: testing the effects of a common substrate versus native soils on yield and community composition. Restoration Ecology 28(52):S194-S202. DOI: 10.1111/rec.13127. (link )
2019
Bethany, J., A. Giraldo-Silva, C. Nelson, N. N. Barger and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2019. Optimizing the production of nursery-based biological soil crusts for restoration of arid land soils. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 85(15):e00735-19. DOI: 10.1128/AEM.00735-19. (link )
Couradeau, E., A. Giraldo-Silva, F. de Martini and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2019. Spatial segregation of the biological soil crust microbiome around its foundational cyanobacterium, Microcoleus vaginatus, and the formation of a nitrogen-fixing cyanosphere. Microbiome 7:Art. 55. DOI: 10.1186/s40168-019-0661-2. (link )
Garcia-Pichel, F., J. Lombard, T. Soule, S. Dunaj, S. H. Wu and M. F. Wojciechowski. 2019. Timing the evolutionary advent of cyanobacteria and the later great oxidation event using gene phylogenies of a sunscreen. mBio 10(3):e00561-19. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00561-19. (link )
Giraldo-Silva, A., C. Nelson, N. N. Barger and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2019. Nursing biocrusts: isolation, cultivation, and fitness test of indigenous cyanobacteria. Restoration Ecology 28(4):793-803. DOI: 10.1111/rec.12920. (link )
Machado de Lima, N. M., V. M. Fernandes, D. Roush, S. Velazco-Ayuso, J. Rigonato, F. Garcia-Pichel and L. H. Zanini Branco. 2019. The compositionally distinct cyanobacterial biocrusts from Brazilian savanna and their environmental drivers of community diversity. Frontiers in Microbiology 10. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.02798. (link )
Muñoz-Martín, M., I. Becerra-Absalón, E. Perona, L. Fernández-Valbuena, F. Garcia-Pichel and P. Mateo. 2019. Cyanobacterial biocrust diversity in Mediterranean ecosystems along a latitudinal and climatic gradient. New Phytologist 221(1):123-141. DOI: 10.1111/nph.15355. (link )
2018
Couradeau, E., V. J. Felde, D. Parkinson, D. Uteau, A. Rochert, C. Cuellar, G. Winegar, S. Peth, T. R. Northern and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2018. In situ x-ray tomography imaging of soil water and cyanobacteria from biological soil crusts undergoing dessication. Frontiers in Environmental Science 6:65. DOI: 10.3389/fenvs.2018.00065. (link )
Ferandes, V. M., N. M. Machado de Lima, D. Roush, J. Rudgers, S. L. Collins and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2018. Exposure to predicted precipitation patterns decreases population size and alters community structure of cyanobacteria in biological soil crusts from the Chihuahuan Desert. Environmental Microbiology 20(1):259-269. DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.13983. (link )
Jose, N. A., R. Lau, T. L. Swenson, N. Klitgord, F. Garcia-Pichel, B. P. Bowen, R. Baran and T. R. Northern. 2018. Flux balance modeling to predict bacterial survival during pulsed-activity events. Biogeosciences 15(7):2219–2229. DOI: 10.5194/bg-15-2219-2018. (link )
Karaoz, U., E. Couradeau, U. Nunes de Rocha, H. Lim, T. R. Northern, F. Garcia-Pichel and E. L. Brodie. 2018. Large blooms of Bacillales (Firmicutes) underlie the response to wetting of cyanobacterial biocrusts at various staages of maturity. mBio 9(2):e01366-16. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01366-16. (link )
Klicki, K., D. Ferreira, D. Hamill, B. Dirks, N. Mitchell and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2018. The widely conserved ebo cluster is involved in precursor transport to the periplasm during scytonemin synthesis in Nostoc punctoforme. mBio 9(6):e02266-18. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.02266-18. (link )
Muñoz-Martín, M., I. Becerra-Absalón, E. Perona, L. Fernández-Valbuena, F. Garcia-Pichel and P. Mateo. 2018. Cyanobacterial biocrust diversity in Mediterranean ecosystems along a latitudinal and climatic gradient.. New Phytologist 221(1):123-141. DOI: 10.1111/nph.15355. (link )
Roush, D., E. Couradeau, B. Guida, S. Neuer and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2018. A new niche for anoxygenic phototrophs as endoliths. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 84(11):e02055-17. DOI: 10.1128/AEM.02055-17. (link )
Sorochkina, K., S. Velazco-Ayuso and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2018. Establishing rates of lateral expansion of cyanobacterial biological soil crusts for optimal restoration. Plant and Soil 429(1-2):199-211. DOI: 10.1007/s11104-018-3695-5. (link )
Thomazo, C., E. Couradeau and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2018. Possible nitrogen fertilization of the early Earth Ocean by microbial continental ecosystems. Nature Communications 9:Art. 2530. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04995-y. (link )
2017
Baran, R., R. Lau, B. P. Bowen, S. Diamond, F. Garcia-Pichel and T. R. Northern. 2017. Extensive turnover of compatible solutes in cyanobacteria revealed by deuterium oxide (D2O) stable isotope probing. Chemical Biology 12(3):674-681. DOI: 10.1021/acschembio.6b00890. (link )
Couradeau, E., D. Roush, B. Guida and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2017. Diversity and mineral substrate preference in endolithic microbial communities from marine intertidal outcrops (Isla de Mona, Puerto Rico). Biogeosciences 14:311-324. DOI: 10.5194/bg-14-311-2017. (link )
Guida, B., M. Bose and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2017. Carbon fixation from mineral carbonates. Nature Communications 18:1025. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00703-. (link )
Reddy Gundlapally, S. and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2017. Description of Deinococcus oregonensis sp. nov., from biological soil crusts in the Southwestern arid lands of the United States of America. Archives of Microbiology 199(1):69-76. DOI: 10.1007/s00203-016-1273-x. (link )
Velazco-Ayuso, S., A. Giraldo-Silva, C. Nelson, N. N. Barger and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2017. Microbial nursery production of high-quality biological soil crust biomass for restoration of degraded dryland soils. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 83(3):. DOI: 10.1128/AEM.02179-16. (link )
2015
Hoffmann, D., J. Maldonado, M. F. Wojciechowski and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2015. Hydrogen export from intertidal cyanobacterial mats: Sources, fluxes and the influence of community composition. Environmental Microbiology 17(10):3738-3753. DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.12769. (link )
Marusenko, Y. Y., F. Garcia-Pichel and S. J. Hall. 2015. Ammonia-oxidizing archaea respond positively to inorganic nitrogen addition in desert soils. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 91(2):1-11. DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiu023. (link )
2012
Strauss, S. L., F. Garcia-Pichel and T. A. Day. 2012. Soil microbial carbon and nitrogen transformations at a glacial foreland on Anvers Island, Antarctic Peninsula. Polar Biology 35(10):1459-1471. DOI: 10.1007/s00300-012-1184-5. (link )
2011
Strauss, S. L., T. A. Day and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2011. Nitrogen cycling in desert biological soil crusts across biogeographic regions in the southwestern United States. Biogeochemistry 108(1):171-182. DOI: 10.1007/s10533-011-9587-x. (link )
2010
Bates, S. T., T. H. Nash III, K. G. Sweat and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2010. Fungal communities of lichen-dominated biological soil crusts: Diversity, relative microbial biomass, and their relationship to disturbance and crust cover. Journal of Arid Environments 74(10):1192-1199. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaridenv.2010.05.033. (link )
2009
Beraldi-Campesi, H., H. E. Hartnett, A. D. Anbar, G. W. Gordon and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2009. Effect of biological soil crusts on soil elemental concentrations: Implications for biogeochemistry and as traceable biosignatures of ancient life on land. Geobiology 7(3):348-359. DOI: 10.1111/j.1472-4669.2009.00204.x. (link )
2005
Elser, J. J., J. H. Schampel, F. Garcia-Pichel, B. D. Wade, V. Souza, L. E. Eguiarte, A. E. Escalante and J. Farmer. 2005. Effects of phosphorus enrichment and grazing snails on lmodern stromatolitic microbial communities. Freshwater Biology 50(11):1808-1825. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2427.2005.01451.x. (link )
Book Chapters
2019
Soule, T. and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2019. Cyanobacteria. Pp. 799-817 In: Schmidt, T. M. ed., Encyclopedia of Microbiology (Fourth Edition). Elsevier. ISBN: 978-0-12-811737-8.
2017
Garcia-Pichel, F. and J. C. Belnap. 2017. 7 - Cyanobacteria and algae. Pp. 171-189 In: Gentry, T. J., J. J. Furhmann and D. A. Zuberer eds., Principles and Applications of Soil Microbiology. Elsevier. ISBN: 978-0-12-820202-9.
Posters
2016
MacNeille, B., D. L. Childers and F. Garcia-Pichel. 2016. Microbial biodiversity in Phoenix's public phyllosphere. Poster presented at the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Eighteenth Annual All Scientists Meeting and Poster Symposium, 15 January 2016, Skysong, Scottsdale, AZ.
2013
Marusenko, Y. Y., F. Garcia-Pichel and S. J. Hall. 2013. Nitrogen fertilization creates new niches for ammonia-oxidizing microbial communities in soil. Poster presented at the 11 January 2013, 15th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium and All Scientist Meeting 2013, Skysong, Scottsdale, AZ. (link )