Leibniz Forschungsverbund Infections'21

The Leibniz Research Alliance “INFECTIONS´21” aims to establish an interdisciplinary research agenda and opens up new avenues of communication across disciplines. New strategies and methods for early warning and outbreak management systems will be developed to control spread of pathogens. This effort will also include public involvement through citizen science projects.

HFSP-IAMM: Interactions Among Marine Microbes

The oceans are teeming with microbial life, which impacts global biogeochemistry, climate and human health. “-Omics” methods enable us to identify “who is there” and their genetic potential, but understanding how these organisms interact in nature and how they affect biogeochemical processes remains a major open challenge. A crucial component of this puzzle, at the heart of the cycling of nutrients in the biosphere, is the coupling between organisms that fix carbon using solar energy (phytoplankton) and microbes that rely on organic carbon for energy and growth (heterotrophs). The diversity of microbial species and the richness of their metabolism make the problem of predicting how each pair of species will interact impossible to address using traditional approaches. This project will tackle this challenge through a tightly integrated combination of genome scale modeling and laboratory experiments, to identify genomic traits dictating how environmentally-relevant microbes interact. Our approach, will provide a critical stepping-stone towards predicting how marine microbial systems will evolve in a changing world.

Leibniz SAW Project MikOMIK

The joint project MikrOMIK is aiming at a comprehensive analysis of microplastics in the Baltic Sea, focusing on the microbial populations colonizing the plastic particles. So far, only rough estimations of the abundance and distribution of microplastics in the Baltic Sea exist, and nothing is known about the interaction between microplastics and microorganisms in this ecosystem. Within the project, methods for the sampling and identification of microplastics from seawater and sediment are being evaluated; abundances, sources and sinks of microplastics in the Baltic Sea are being determined; microplastic sedimentation behavior is being explored; ingestion and egestion by higher organisms is being studied; and microbial plastic biofilms, including potential pathogenic members, are being investigated.

Leibniz SAW Project MycoLink

MycoLink Linking aquatic fungal diversity to ecosystem function

is funded by the Leibniz Association “PAKT for Research and Innovation” and is a cooperation between 4 Leibniz Institutes:

1. Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in Berlin
2. Leibniz-Institute DSMZ – German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures in Braunschweig
3. Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Müncheberg
4. Leibniz-Institute of Zoo- and Wildlife research (IZW) in Berlin

and the Berlin Centre for Genomics in Biodiversity Research (BeGenDiv)

The MiBi working group, headed by Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Grossart, was established as a junior group in 2002 as part of Department 3 (Experimental Limnology) located at Lake Stechlin, NE Germany. Initially, the group has focused on the microbial and physiological characterisation of sinking aggregates and their ecological role in aquatic ecosystem. During the past years the scientific focus has widened, ranging from 1) genes (single cell genomics, metagenomics and metatranscriptomics), 2) organisms (archaea, bacteria, fungi), 3) biogeochemical processes (organic matter cycling, oxic methane production), 4) populations and communities (aquatic (parasitic) fungi, Actinobacteria, interactions between phytoplankton and bacteria) to 5) whole ecosystems (lakes, oceans, estuaries, rivers). A main task is to link patterns of biodiversity and processes at the microscale with those at the landscape or global scale. Methods used comprise OMICS tools, biogeochemical measures, traditional microbiological methods, microscopy and remote sensing during field-, mesocosm- and laboratory studies. The international MiBi research group represents a wide range of disciplines and expertise including biology, chemistry, physics and modelling.

Specific topics:

- ecology and taxonomy of aquatic fungi

- microbial diversity and function in respond to extreme weather events

- functional and physical properties of sinking particles

- origin and fate of methane in oxic waters

- mechanisms and importance of algal-bacterial interactions

- aquatic-terrestrial coupling and its effect on aquatic biodiversity

- microplastic pollution

Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Grossart has established himself as an expert in the field of aquatic microbial ecology and aquatic biodiversity, amassing over 8000 citations, being awarded >6 million € in research funding, serving as editor and has published >200 publications. Since 2016 he has been serving as a board member-at-large of the Association for the Sciences of Oceanography and Limnology.

MIBI-Members

Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Grossart

Elke Mach (TA)

Solvig Pinnow (TA)

Isabell Klawonn (Postdoc)

Silke Van den Wyngaert (Postdoc)

Luca Zoccarato (Postdoc)

Jason Woodhouse (Postdoc)

Danny Ionescu (Postdoc)

Mina Bizic-Ionescu (Postdoc)

Olesya Kolmakova (Guest, Postdoc)

Thomas Hornick (PhD)

Therese Kettner (PhD)

Maria Arias (PhD)

Darshan Neubauer (PhD)

Luis Alberto Villalba (PhD)

Truls Hansson (PhD)

Jeremy Fonvielle (PhD)

Hossein Masigol (PhD)

Daniela Numberger (PhD at IZW with Prof. Dr. Alex Greenwood)

Florian Reverey (PhD at ZALF with Prof. Dr. Gunnar Lischeid)

Beatrix Beisner (Sabbatical, Guest Senior Researcher)

Keilor Rojas (Guest, Senior Researcher)