Daliang Ning
Associate Director
Institute for Environmental Genomics
Research Scientist
School of Biological Sciences
University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
101 David L. Boren Blvd., SRTC 2030
Norman, OK 73019, USA
CV | Github | Google scholar
Degree and Institution
- Ph.D. 2009 Environmental Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- B.E. 2003 Environmental Engineering. Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Appointment
- 2022.4-present Associate Director
Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA - 2016.6-present Research Scientist
Institute for Environmental Genomics, School of Biology Sciences (Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology before 2023), University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA - 2021.4-present Affiliate Research Scientist
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA - 2020.6-present Responsible Editor for Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering.
Research Areas
- Microbial Ecology
- Environmental Microbiology
- Bioinformatics
Research interests
- Microbial community assembly mechanisms, e.g., selection, competition, dispersal, ecological drift.
- Microbial ecology in environmental engineering and global changes.
- Global/continental microbiome: biogeography in different dimensions of diversity.
- Software/packages/tools development for microbial ecology studies.
Honors
- Highly Cited Researcher (top 0.1% in the world) in Environment and Ecology in 2025, Clarivate.
- Research & Creative Activity Award in 2025, The University of Oklahoma.
- Highly Cited Researcher (top 0.1% in the world) in Cross Field in 2024, Clarivate.
- Annual Award for Excellence in Research Grants in 2021, The University of Oklahoma.
- Outstanding Editor in 2021, Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering.
- Annual Award for Excellence in Research Grants in 2020, The University of Oklahoma.
Tools
- iCAMP: R package | Web-based pipeline [developer & maintainer]
- NST: R package | Web-based pipeline [developer & maintainer]
- Sequencing and microarray data analysis pipeline [developer & maintainer]
- Molecular ecological network analysis pipeline [maintainer]
Publications
Till Jan 8, 2026: 101 peer-reviewed journal papers, 38 conference presentations, 6 invention patents.
H-index 48, i10-index 82, cited 15,236 times, 16 publications are top 1% highly cited.
Ning D, Wang Y, Fan Y, Wang J, Van Nostrand JD, Wu L, Zhang P, Curtis DJ, Tian R, Lui L, Hazen TC, Alm EJ, Fields MW, Poole F, Adams MWW, Chakraborty R, Stahl DA, Adams PD, Arkin AP, He Z & Zhou J. 2024.
Environmental stress mediates groundwater microbial community assembly.
Nature Microbiology 9, 490-501.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-023-01573-x
Ning D, Yuan M, Wu L, Zhang Y, Guo X, Zhou X, Yang Y, Arkin AP, Firestone MK, and Zhou J. 2020.
A quantitative framework reveals ecological drivers of grassland microbial community assembly in response to warming.
Nature Communications 11, 4717.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18560-z
Ning D, Deng Y, Tiedje JM, Zhou J. 2019.
A General Framework for Quantitatively Assessing Ecological Stochasticity.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116:16892-16898.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1904623116
Zhu C, Wu L, Ning D, Tian R, Gao S, Zhang B, Zhao J, Zhang Y, Xiao N, Wang Y, Brown MR, Tu Q, Acevedo D, Agullo-Barcelo M, de Araujo JC, de Abreu Mac Conell ÉF, Boehnke K, Bond P, Bott CB, Bovio-Winkler P, Brewster RK, Bux F, Cabezas A, Cabrol L, Chen S, Etchebehere C, Ford A, Gómez JS, Griffin JS, Gu AZ, Habagil M, Hale L, Harmon M, Horn H, Hu Z, Johnson DR, Marcantini DG, Keucken A, Kumari S, Leal CD, Lee ZMP, Li Y, Li Z, Li M, Liu Y, Mendonça-Hagler LC, de Menezes FGR, Meyers AJ, Palmer A, Parameswaran P, Reginatto V, de los Reyes FL, Rossetti S, Sidhu J, Smith K, de Sousa OV, Stephens K, Sun C, Tooker NB, Van Nostrand JD, Wakelin S, Wang B, Weaver JE, West S, Woo S-G, Wu J-H, Wu L, Xi C, Yan T, Yang M, Young M, Zhang C, Zhang Q, Zhang W, Zheng W, Zhou H, Zhuang W, Ju F, Wells GF, Guo J, He Z, Nielsen PH, Wang A, Zhang Y, Chen T, He Q, Criddle CS, Wagner M, Tiedje JM, Curtis TP, Wen X, Yang Y, Alvarez-Cohen L, Stahl DA, Alvarez PJJ, Rittmann BE, Zhou J & Global Water Microbiome Consortium. 2025
Global diversity and distribution of antibiotic resistance genes in human wastewater treatment systems.
Nature Communications 16, 4006.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59019-3
Wu L (co-first), Ning D (co-first), Zhang B (co-first), Li Y, Zhang P, Shan X, Zhang Q, Brown MR, Li Z, Van Nostrand JD, Ling F, Xiao N, Zhang Y, Vierheilig J, Wells GF, Yang Y, Deng Y, Tu Q, Wang A, Global Water Microbiome Consortium, Zhang T, He Z, Keller J, Nielsen PH, Alvarez PJJ, Criddle CS, Wagner M, Tiedje JM, He Q, Curtis TP, Stahl DA, Alvarez-Cohen L, Rittmann BE, Wen X, Zhou J. 2019.
Global diversity and biogeography of bacterial communities in wastewater treatment plants.
Nature Microbiology 4:1183–1195.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-019-0426-5
Zhou J, Ning D. 2017.
Stochastic Community Assembly: Does It Matter in Microbial Ecology?
Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 81.
https://doi.org/10.1128/mmbr.00002-17.
