Gary M. King
Professor
BMB and SEE Divisions
PhD: University of Georgia, 1978
Phone: 225-578-5911
Lab Phone: 225-578-5911
Office: 250 Life Sciences Building
Lab: 250 Life Sciences Building
E-mail: gking@lsu.edu
Area of Interest
We are interested in the distribution, diversity and activity of bacteria that either use or impact trace gases in the atmosphere, including methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide among others. These gases have profound effects on atmospheric chemistry and radiative forcing and act in concert with carbon dioxide to contribute to global climate change. Our work ranges from studies of laboratory cultures to understand controls of metabolism to field studies to understand distribution and activity. We use a wide range of approaches to address basic questions, and have developed a battery of "molecular" tools to complement more traditional cultivation and field assays.
Our work includes an emphasis on volcanic systems, e.g., Kilauea volcano, Hawai'i, which facilitates analysis of broader questions, e.g., what determines the patterns of microbial colonization and succession on recent volcanic deposits during succession does diversity increase through random or order assemblages of phylogenetically distinct organisms; what is more important, diversity at higher phylogenetic orders (e.g., phyla within a domain) or at lower orders (e.g., within a phylum)
Selected Publications
King, G.M. 2015. Carbon monoxide as a metabolic energy source for extremely halophilic microbes: Implications for microbial activity in Mars regolith. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 112:4465-4470.
Myers, M., King, G.M. 2017. Perchlorate-coupled carbon monoxide (CO) oxidation: evidence for a plausible microbe-mediated reaction in Martian brines. Frontiers in Microbiology, 8. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.02571.
Cordero, P.R.F., K. Bayly, P.M. Leung, C. Huang, Z.F. Islam, R.B. Schittenhelm. G.M. King, C. Greening. 2019. Atmospheric carbon monoxide oxidation is a widespread mechanism supporting microbial survival. ISME J. 13:2868-2881.
King, G.M. 2018. Microbiomes of the enteropneust, Saccoglossus bromophenolosus, and associated marine intertidal sediments of Cod Cove, Maine. Front. Microbiol., 9. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.03066
rewer, T.E., E.L. Aronson, K. Arogyaswamy, S.A. Billings, J.K. Botthoff, A.N. Campbell,
et al. 2019.
Ecological and genomic attributes of novel bacterial taxa that thrive in subsurface
soil horizons. mBio 10:e01318-19. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01318-19
Hernández, M., Vera-Gargallo, B., Calabi-Floody, M., G.M. King, R. Conrad, C.C. Tebbe. 2020. Reconstructing Genomes of Carbon Monoxide Oxidisers in Volcanic Deposits Including Members of the Class Ktedonobacteria. Microorganisms. 8: doi:10.3390/microorganisms8121880
DePoy, A., G.M. King, H. Ohta. 2020. Anaerobic Carbon Monoxide Uptake by Microbial Communities in Volcanic Deposits at Different Stages of Successional Development on O‐yama Volcano, Miyake‐jima, Japan. Microorganisms. https://doi.org/10.3390/ microorganisms9010012