Research Projects

Microbial diversity in deep-sea sediments of the world’s oceans is largely unknown. Gaining knowledge on the genetic diversity, community structures and relative abundances of bacteria in different parts of the world’s oceans is essential for the detection and evaluation of response patterns of microbial deep-sea communities to environmental changes. During my Ph.D. I will use a variety of molecular biological approaches to investigate microbial diversity and community structure of seafloor sediments in different areas of the world’s oceans. The investigated sites have well known oceanography, biogeochemistry and geology. It will therefore be possible to correlate microbial diversity data to biogeochemical parameters in order to understand the main factors influencing microbial community structure.

Large organic food falls such as whale carcasses, wood and kelp can lead to the development of chemosynthetic environments in the deep sea which might act as stepping stones in the evolution and distribution of chemoautotrophic communities. Sunken wood provides a concentrated, locally restricted input of organic material to the deep sea, but so far it was not well understood how and when its degradation may lead to reducing conditions and high sulfide concentrations that attract chemosynthetic organisms. To date little is known about the microbial diversity on large organic food falls in the deep sea. The characterization of microbial communities on wood falls from different oceanic regions and comparisons with other chemosynthetic habitats is another objective of my Ph.D. research. The research is integrated into the ESF EUROCORES EuroDEEP Project “Colonization processes in chemosynthetic ecosystems – CHEMECO” and the MPG-CNRS GDRE „Diversity, establishment and function of organisms associated with marine wood falls – DIWOOD”.