Noemi Schollmeyer

A substantial portion of microbially-produced enzymes that degrade organic matter is cell-free. In other words, these enzymes are released to the environment and, as a result, can become decoupled from their producers. Once freely released, these enzymes encounter various biotic and abiotic variables that determine their fate and lifetimes in the environment. However, the lifetimes of enzymes in marine environments are not well constrained, leaving substantial knowledge gaps on how long they can continue to contribute to biogeochemical processes. This question is especially pertinent in the deep sea and hadal environments, where sporadic pulses of organic matter elicit a ‘feast and famine’ lifestyle among many microorganisms: they produce diverse enzymes in response to organic matter, a fraction of which can persist beyond the lives of their microbial producers. In addition, the effect of pressure on enzyme lifetimes is a severely understudied, but especially critical parameter in deep-sea and hadal environments. Using an experimental approach, this project will investigate the lifetimes of enzymes that degrade organic matter from numerous microbial producers and quantify the effect of pressure on these enzyme lifetimes