2026 David M. Karl: Environmental Sciences Researcher – H-Index, Publications & Awards

Discipline name	D-Index	World Ranking	Current World Ranking	National Ranking	Current National Ranking	Publications	Citations
Environmental Sciences	137	53	50	21	19	552	73972

Research.com Recognitions

2026 - Research.com Environmental Sciences in United States Leader Award
2025 - Research.com Environmental Sciences in United States Leader Award
2023 - Research.com Environmental Sciences in United States Leader Award
2015 - Dupont Industrial Biosciences Award in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, American Society for Microbiology
2015 - Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2015 - International Balzan Prize
2006 - Member of the National Academy of Sciences
1999 - Fellow of American Geophysical Union (AGU)

Overview

David M. Karl is affiliated with the University of Hawaii at Manoa in the United States. Their research spans multiple domains within Earth and Planetary Sciences and Environmental Science, with a particular focus on Oceanography and Ecology.

The scientist's primary fields of study include:

Earth and Planetary Sciences
Environmental Science

Within these fields, their research subfields cover:

Oceanography
Ecology
Molecular Biology
Global and Planetary Change
Environmental Chemistry

Main topics of their work are:

Marine and coastal ecosystems
Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
Marine Biology and Ecology Research
Isotope Analysis in Ecology
Methane Hydrates and Related Phenomena
Protist diversity and phylogeny
Ocean Acidification Effects and Responses

David M. Karl has published extensively, with frequent venues including:

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Limnology and Oceanography
Global Biogeochemical Cycles
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Nature Communications

Recent publications include:

"Microbes and Climate Change: a Research Prospectus for the Future," 2022, mBio
"Microbial dynamics of elevated carbon flux in the open ocean's abyss," 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
"Anthropogenic Asian aerosols provide Fe to the North Pacific Ocean," 2020, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
"Earth at risk: An urgent call to end the age of destruction and forge a just and sustainable future," 2024, PNAS Nexus
"Latitudinal constraints on the abundance and activity of the cyanobacterium UCYN-A and other marine diazotrophs in the North Pacific," 2020, Limnology and Oceanography

The scientist has collaborated frequently with colleagues such as Angelicque White, Benedetto Barone, Matthew J. Church, Steve Poulos, and Samuel T. Wilson.

Throughout their career, David M. Karl has received several awards and recognitions, including:

Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2006)
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2015)
International Balzan Prize (2015)
Dupont Industrial Biosciences Award in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, American Society for Microbiology (2015)
Fellow of American Geophysical Union (AGU) (1999)

Best Publications

Nitrogen cycles: past, present, and future

J. N. Galloway;F. J. Dentener;D. G. Capone;E. W. Boyer

6586
Citations
VERTEX: carbon cycling in the northeast Pacific

John H. Martin;George A. Knauer;David M. Karl;William W. Broenkow

2476
Citations
The Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling Expedition: Northwest Atlantic through Eastern Tropical Pacific

Douglas B. Rusch;Aaron L Halpern;Granger Sutton;Karla B. Heidelberg;Karla B. Heidelberg

2383
Citations
Scientists' Warning to Humanity: Microorganisms and Climate Change

Ricardo Cavicchioli;William J. Ripple;Kenneth N. Timmis;Farooq Azam

1980
Citations
Archaeal dominance in the mesopelagic zone of the Pacific Ocean

Markus B. Karner;Edward F. DeLong;David M. Karl

1840
Citations
Community Genomics Among Stratified Microbial Assemblages in the Ocean's Interior

Edward F. DeLong;Christina M. Preston;Tracy Mincer;Virginia Rich

1587
Citations
Present and future global distributions of the marine Cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus

Pedro Flombaum;José L. Gallegos;Rodolfo A. Gordillo;José Rincon

1462
Citations
The role of nitrogen fixation in biogeochemical cycling in the subtropical North Pacific Ocean

D. Karl;R. Letelier;L. Tupas;J. Dore

1153
Citations
Phosphate depletion in the western North Atlantic Ocean.

Jingfeng Wu;William Sunda;Edward A. Boyle;David M. Karl

897
Citations
Phytoplankton in the ocean use non-phosphorus lipids in response to phosphorus scarcity.

Benjamin A. S. Van Mooy;Helen F. Fredricks;Byron E. Pedler;Byron E. Pedler;Sonya T. Dyhrman

882
Citations
Dinitrogen fixation in the world's oceans

D. Karl;A. Michaels;B. Bergman;D.G. Capone

872
Citations
Unicellular cyanobacteria fix N2 in the subtropical North Pacific Ocean.

Jonathan P. Zehr;John B. Waterbury;Patricia J. Turner;Joseph P. Montoya

770
Citations
Cellular nucleotide measurements and applications in microbial ecology.

D M Karl

731
Citations
Revisiting Carbon Flux Through the Ocean's Twilight Zone

Ken O. Buesseler;Carl H. Lamborg;Philip W. Boyd;Phoebe J. Lam

729
Citations
The Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) program: Background, rationale and field implementation

David M. Karl;Roger Lukas

650
Citations
Physical and biogeochemical modulation of ocean acidification in the central North Pacific.

John E. Dore;Roger Lukas;Daniel W. Sadler;Matthew J. Church

640
Citations
Quantitative distribution of presumptive archaeal and bacterial nitrifiers in Monterey Bay and the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.

Tracy J. Mincer;Matthew J. Church;Lance Trent Taylor;Christina Preston

604
Citations
Production of methane and ethylene from plastic in the environment

Sarah-Jeanne Royer;Sara Ferrón;Samuel T. Wilson;David M. Karl

596
Citations
Aerobic production of methane in the sea

David M. Karl;Lucas Beversdorf;Karin M. Björkman;Matthew J. Church

585
Citations
MAGIC : a sensitive and precise method for measuring dissolved phosphorus in aquatic environments

David M. Karl;Georgia Tien

579
Citations
A Sea of Change: Biogeochemical Variability in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre

David M. Karl

527
Citations

Frequent Co-Authors

Matthew J. Church University of Montana

Ricardo M. Letelier Oregon State University

Edward F. DeLong University of Hawaii at Manoa

Roger Lukas University of Hawaii at Manoa

Jonathan P. Zehr University of California, Santa Cruz

Angelicque E. White University of Hawaii at Manoa

Robert R. Bidigare University of Hawaii at Manoa

John E. Dore Montana State University

Scott C. Doney University of Virginia

Daniel J. Repeta Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

External Links

Wikipedia of David M. Karl Personal website of David M. Karl Google Scholar page

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