Katerina Estera-Molina is a staff scientist and soil microbial ecologist at LLNL who uses the stable isotope, 13C as 13CO2, as a tracer within various greenhouse and field experiments to explore the relationship between plants, soil, and the belowground microbial community. She runs and manages the Environmental Plant Isotope Chamber (EPIC) Dynamic Ecosystem Labeling (DEL) facility.

M. Sc. Range Management, University of California, Berkeley, 2017

B. Sc. Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 2010

Chuckran, Peter F., Katerina Estera-Molina, Alexa M. Nicolas, Ella T. Sieradzki, Paul Dijkstra, Mary K. Firestone, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Steve J. Blazewicz. (2025). Codon bias, nucleotide selection, and genome size predict in situ bacterial growth and expression in rewetted soil. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(3), e2413032122.

Chuckran, P. F., Estera-Molina, K., Huntemann, M., Foster, B., Roux, S., Mukherjee, S., Hajek, P., Reddy, T.B.K., Daum, C., Chen, I.A., Pennacchio, C., Eloe-Fadrosh, E., Dijkstra, P., Firestone, M.K., Blazewicz, S., & Pett-Ridge, J. (2024). Metatranscriptomes of California grassland soil microbial communities in response to rewetting. Microbiology Resource Announcements, 13(6), e00322-24.

Sokol, N., Foley, M., Blazewicz, S. J., Battacharyya, A., Estera-Molina, K., Firestone, M. K., Greenlon, A., Hungate, B.A., Kimbrel, J., Liquet, J., Lafler, M., Marple, M., Nico, P., Slessarev, E., & Pett-Ridge, J. (2024). The path from root input to mineral-associated soil carbon is dictated by habitat-specific microbial traits and soil moisture. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 193, 109367

Kakouridis, A., Yuan, M., Nuccio, E. E., Hagen, J. A., Fossum, C. A., Moore, M. L., Estera-Molina, K.Y., Nico, P.S., Weber, P.K., Pett-Ridge, J., & Firestone, M. K. (2024). Arbuscular mycorrhiza convey significant plant carbon to a diverse hyphosphere microbial food web and mineral‐associated organic matter. New Phytologist.

Santos-Medellin, C., Estera-Molina, K., Yuan, M., Pett-Ridge, J., Firestone, M. K., & Emerson, J. B. (2022). Spatial turnover of soil viral populations and genotypes overlain by cohesive responses to moisture in grasslands. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(45), e2209132119.

Fossum, C., Estera-Molina, K., Yuan, M., Herman, D., Chu-Jacoby, I., Nico, P., Morrison, K., Pett-Ridge, J., & Firestone, M. K. (2022). Belowground allocation and dynamics of recently fixed plant carbon in a California annual grassland soil. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 165, 108519.

Pett-Ridge, J., Shi, S., Estera-Molina, K., Nuccio, E., Yuan, M., Rijkers, R., Swenson, T., Zhalnina, K., Northern, T., Zhou, J., & Firestone, M. K. (2021). Rhizosphere carbon turnover from cradle to grave: the role of microbe–plant interactions. In Rhizosphere biology: interactions between microbes and plants (pp. 51-73). Springer, Singapore.

Aigle, A., Gubry‐Rangin, C., Thion, C., Estera‐Molina, K. Y., Richmond, H., Pett‐Ridge, J., Firestone, M.K., Nicol, G., & Prosser, J. I. (2020). Experimental testing of hypotheses for temperature‐and pH‐based niche specialization of ammonia oxidizing archaea and bacteria. Environmental Microbiology, 22(9), 4032-4045.

Nuccio, E.E., Anderson-Furgeson, J., Estera, K.Y., Pett-Ridge, J., Valpine, P., Brodie, E.L. & Firestone, M.K. (2016). Climate and edaphic controllers influence rhizosphere community assembly for a wild annual grass. Ecology, 97(5), pp.1307-1318.

Shi, S., Nuccio, E., Herman, D.J., Rijkers, R., Estera, K., Li, J., da Rocha, U.N., He, Z., Pett-Ridge, J., Brodie, E.L. and Zhou, J., & Firestone, M. K. (2015). Successional trajectories of rhizosphere bacterial communities over consecutive seasons. mbio, 6(4), pp.e00746-15.

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