Jessica Lueders-Dumont Ph.D.

I am an ecologist and geochemist with expertise in fish ecology and stable isotopes in marine and freshwater ecosystems. A large focus of my research has been isotopic method development to extract nitrogen isotopes from fossil and modern fish otoliths (ear stones), unique chronometric structures that provide life history records of fish habitat, climate, and ecology and are preserved in marine sediments spanning the last 400 million years. This development has enabled me to reconstruct marine food web structure prior to historic overfishing of Atlantic cod and to quantify changes in Caribbean coral reefs spanning the last 7000 years. The primary aim of my research is to reconstruct how ecosystems responded to past disturbances and how they are faring today by comparison. My current research interests focus on using isotopes as a window into prehistoric coastal environments in the U.S., Panama, and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Publications:

Reis-Santos, P., B.M. Gillanders, A.M. Sturrock, C. Izzo, D. S. Oxman, J.A. Lueders-Dumont, K. Hüssy, S.E. Tanner, T. Rogers, Z.A. Doubleday, A.H. Andrews, C. Trueman, D. Brophy, J.D. Thiem, L.J. Baumgartner, M. Willmes, M.-T. Chung, P. Charapata, R.C. Johnson, S. Trumble, Y. Heimbrand, K.E. Limburg, B.D. Walther. Reading the biomineralized book of life: expanding otolith biogeochemical research and applications for fisheries and ecosystem-based management. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries (2023), 33(2), 411-449.

Lueders-Dumont, J.A., A.G. Forden, E.R. Kast, J.A. Mohan, B.D. Walther, D.M. Sigman, B.B. Ward. Controls on the nitrogen isotopic composition of fish otolith organic matter: Lessons from a controlled diet switch experiment. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (2022), 316, 69-86.

O’Dea, A, S.G.A. Flantua, M.Leray, J.A. Lueders-Dumont, M.C. Titcomb. Pleistocene sea level changes and crocodile population histories on the Isthmus of Panama: A comment on Avila-Cervantes et al. 2020 (2022). Evolution, 76(11), 2778-2783.

Lueders-Dumont, J.A., D.M. Sigman, B.J. Johnson, O.P. Jensen, B.B. Ward. Comparison of the isotopic composition of fish otolith-bound organic N with host tissue. Canadian Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences (2020), 77(2), 264-275.

Aldunate, M., C. Henríquez-Castillo, Q. Ji, J.A. Lueders-Dumont, B.B. Ward, P. von Dassow, O. Uloa. Nitrogen assimilation in picocyanobacteria inhabiting the anoxic marine zones of the eastern tropical North and South Pacific. Limnology and Oceanography (2019), 65(2), 437-453.

Lueders-Dumont, J.A., X.T. Wang, O.P. Jensen, D.M. Sigman, B.B. Ward. Nitrogen isotopic analysis of carbonate-bound organic matter in modern and fossil fish otoliths. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (2018), 224, 200–222.

Van Oostende, N., S.E. Fawcett, D. Marconi, J.A. Lueders-Dumont, A.J.M. Sabadel, E.M.S. Woodward, B.F. Jönsson, D.M. Sigman, B.B. Ward. Variation of summer phytoplankton community composition and its relationship to nitrate and regenerated nitrogen assimilation across the North Atlantic Ocean. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers (2017), 121, 79-94.