Genetic information can be rapidly decoded using high-throughput methods and made available in openly accessible Digital Sequence Information (DSI) databases. This genetic information is used for comparative analyses and is indispensable for life sciences research. Examples include the research o...
A new study in the prestigious journal Science Advances shows that stress from rising water temperatures reduces ability of corals to adapt to ocean acidification.
EVENTS AT THE MPI BREMEN
Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, currently no events are taking place at our institute.
We are looking forward to welcome you hopefully soon again!
Due to a change in our telephone system we now have four-digit extensions – please update your contacts!
Gunter Wegener and Fanni Aspetsberger describe our current research on anaerobic microbes that feed on natural gas and crude oil.
Carbon monoxide is a very poisonous gas. Humans die within minutes when they inhale it. However, some microorganisms tolerate carbon monoxide and even use it to breathe and replicate. Knowledge about how these bacteria survive opens a window into the primeval times of the earth and the origin of ...
They are the true rulers of the earth: microorganisms. Without them there would be no air to breathe, no soil to grow food, no clean water. Microbes in the sea and ocean play a significant role in making the "System Earth" work. Yet little is known about them. This is why research on marine micro...
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen are developing a user-friendly method to reconstruct and analyze SSU rRNA from raw metagenome data.
Dr. Boran Kartal, group leader of the Microbial Physiology Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, was appointed cooperation professor at the Jacobs University in Bremen, which thereby strengthens its teaching and research activities. Kartal, togethe...
Deep-seabed mining is considered a way to address the increasing need of rare metals. However, the environmental impacts are considered to be substantial but remain largely unknown and clear regulatory standards are lacking. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Breme...
The Otto Mønsted Foundation has provided funding for Dr. Manuel Liebeke to join as a guest professor at the Danish Technical Institute in 2021. He will collaborate with the CeMiSt center in their new mass spectrometry imaging center and participate in talks, seminars, and other interactions with ...
Congratulations: Dr. Katharina Kitzinger has been awarded the Reimar Lüst Fellowship by the Max Planck Society (MPG). This will support the post-doctoral scientist’s research on the marine nitrogen cycle at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen for another two years.
We are pleased to welcome the MarMic class 2025. We wish the seven students much success and an exciting time with many new insights!
We humans need oxygen to breath – for a lot of microbes it is a lethal poison. That is why microorganisms have developed ways to render oxygen molecules harmless. Microbiologists from Bremen, Marburg and Grenoble have now succeeded in decrypting such a mechanism. They show, how methane-generating...
Marine biologist and symbiosis researcher Prof. Dr. Nicole Dubilier, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, received an Excellence Professorship from the Prof. Dr. Werner-Petersen Foundation for her scientific achievements, endowed with 20,000 euros. The award cer...
As a side effect of their metabolism, microorganisms living on methane can also convert ammonia. In the process, they produce nitric oxide (NO), a central molecule in the global nitrogen cycle. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen (DE), and Radboud University, ...
Nice to see: Matt shimmering metal letters now decorate the entrance area of our institute. Above the stairs to the main entrance, the words “Max-Planck-Institut für Marine Mikrobiologie” welcome staff and guests, making our institute more visible. The new design of the outer walls also includes ...
With about 1 million euros, the foundation is supporting an international team of researchers led by Susanne Erdmann from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in the project "A plasmid goes viral".
Two new vehicles are available for transports and expeditions.
When the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen was founded in 1992, the handful of employees at that time did not even have their own building. Almost 30 years have passed since then and after the institute building was constructed in 1996, it has grown steadily. Now, we are goin...
The scientist Dr. Katharina Kitzinger from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology is one of the winners of this year's MARUM Research Award. She receives the award for her outstanding research on key processes in the nitrogen cycle in the sea, the microorganisms involved and the peculia...
Plastic debris can be found even in the most remote regions of the oceans. Usually it is impossible to determine how long it has been lying on the seabed. Up to now, this has also hampered any attempt to estimate how long plastic degradation might take. Scientists from Kiel and Bremen have now, f...
In several online exhibitions, an international team of researchers, under the direction of cruise leader Prof. Dr. Gerhard Bohrmann from MARUM – Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen, takes visitors to the internet platform Google Arts & Culture on an expedition.
"Together we’re stronger" – The motto of the Bremen Town Musicians, is especially true in these difficult times. But it is not only since the outbreak of the corona pandemic that a picture of the famous sculpture in the center of Bremen adorns the profile picture at WhatsApp of marine chemist Car...
Brown algae are important players in the global carbon cycle by fixing large amounts of carbon dioxide and thus extracting this greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Moreover, because microbial decomposition of dead brown algae is slower than that of other marine plants, carbon dioxide fixed by bro...
No excuses anymore. Whenever you look for our institute, now you can easily find it: Since today it is labelled, well visible to everyone. MPI – these three letters at the wall of our building welcome both staff and guests. Just move your eyes up, and you will see it. The meaning of MPI might be ...
The U Bremen Research Alliance makes the research strength of the university and its non-university partners – amongst them the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology – visible across the globe: The collaboration with the eleven regional research institutes will now be perpetuated: The U Br...
It was only relatively recently that tiny, single-celled thaumarchaea were discovered to exist and thrive in the pelagic ocean, where their population size of roughly ten billion quintillion cells makes them one of the most abundant organisms on our planet. A team of researchers from the MARUM – ...
Deep-sea mining could provide a way to address the increasing need of rare metals. However, its environmental impact is only partially known. In addition, there is a lack of clear standards to regulate mining and set binding thresholds for the impact on the organisms living in affected areas. Res...
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and the MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, Bremen have discovered a microbe that feeds on ethane at deep-sea hot vents. They also succeeded in cultivating this microbe in the laboratory. What is particularly remarkab...
In February, PhD-students conducted a mini-conference on microbiology. This year it took place in Bremen and was a great success for scientific and personal exchange. Here, one of the participants reports from the conference.
by Merle Ücker
Zukunftstag am MPI 2020
The oceans are a very important reservoir for carbon in the system of the earth. However, many aspects of the marine carbon cycle are still unknown. Scientists from Bremen and Bremerhaven now found out that sugar plays an important role in this process. At the same time, the sweet energy source i...
Katharina Kitzinger is awarded the BRIESE-Award for Marine Science
The German Marine Research Alliance introduces itself to guests from the domains of politics, business, science and civil society.
Marine microbes like to play hide and seek. Some bacteria often appear in samples but do not grow in the lab. At the same time, they are too few to be discovered via genetic analysis. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology now succeeded in finding a method to locate them n...
An inspiring trip to Berlin for the group of the Bremen Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology.
On February 26, 2020, the 3rd Ocean Day will allow 500 pupils to dig deep into marine science in Bremen.
On February 26, 2020, the 3rd Ocean Day will allow 500 pupils to dig deep into marine science in Bremen.
Ecological niches are a concept well known from higher animals. Apparently, bacteria act accordingly. Researchers from the Max-Planck-Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen have found that marine Polaribacter-bacteria find their ecological niche by specializing on their favorite sugar. They ...
From the shoreline to the deep sea, one group of bacteria is particularly widespread in our planet’s seabed: The so-called Woeseiales, which may be feeding on the protein remnants of dead cells. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine...
Art and Science – this alliance offers many opportunities, especially when it comes to the tiny world of single-cell organisms. The mural painting of Alexa Garin-Fernandez at the entrance to the Department of Molecular Ecology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology shows how this can...
Nitrogen cycling in shelf waters is crucial to reduce surplus nutrients, which rivers pour out into the ocean. Yet many of its aspects are poorly understood. Scientists from Bremen have now succeeded in finding answers to a longstanding mystery in a key process of the nitrogen cycle.
Mussels in the deep sea can only survive there thanks to symbiotic bacteria living inside of them. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen have now succeeded for the first time in simultaneously identifying individual bacteria in the symbiosis and measuring which...
The field campaign EUREC4A intends to answer one of climate sciences great mysteries. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Bremen support the campaign.
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved a second funding phase for the research group FOR 2406 "Proteogenomics of Marine Polysaccharide Degradation" (POMPU). Scientists from the University of Greifswald and the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology Bremen are working together in ...
Der Titel der Lesung legte bereits nahe, wohin die Reise gehen sollte: „Aufbruch in die Natur! Expeditionen als Schnittstelle von Wissenschaft und Kunst – Eine Lesung zu Fernweh und Aufbruch, Natur und Mensch am Abgrund“. Darum ging es in der szenischen Lesung der Meeresforscherin Antje Boetius ...
Scientists from Bremen discover an unusual protein playing a significant role in the Earth’s nitrogen cycle. The novel heme-containing cytochrome is involved in the anammox process, which is responsible for producing half of the dinitrogen gas in the atmosphere and important in greenhouse gas reg...
Microbes of the genus Arcobacter live in toxic and oxygen-poor areas of the ocean – this has been known for some time. Yet, how exactly do they do this? Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen have recently attempted to answer to this question. In the journal A...
A new group of symbiotic bacteria in deep-sea mussels surprises with the way they fix carbon: They use the Calvin cycle to turn carbon into tasty food. The bacteria acquired the genes for this process from neighboring symbiotic bacteria in the mussel. These results from a recent study by scientis...
Microbiologists at the Max Planck Institutes in Marburg and Bremen have discovered a new metabolic process in the ocean. Ranging from molecular structures of individual genes and detection of their global distribution, their results give insight into the pathway process and its degradation produc...
Prof. Dr. Nicole Dubilier, director of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, is awarded the medal for exceptional contributions to marine science.
Deep-sea mussels, which cooperate with symbiotic bacteria for their food, harbor a surprisingly high diversity of these bacterial “cooks”: Up to 16 different bacterial strains live in the mussel's gills, each with its own abilities and strengths. Thanks to this diversity of symbiotic bacterial pa...
On 2 October, Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and director at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, officially received the Federal Cross of Merit. At the event, Germany’s Federal President Frank-Wal...
For the first time, scientists in Bremen were able to observe bacteria forming pearl chains that protrude from the cell surface. These pearl chains serve to better absorb and store substances from the environment. The researchers now present their results in the journal Applied and Environmental ...
Am 21. und 22. September konnten kleine und große Besucher auf der Forschungsmeile 2019 ausprobieren, wie Wissenschaftler arbeiten. Wir waren dabei und haben uns sehr über das rege Interesse an unseren Zelten gefreut. Ein großes Dankeschön geht dabei an unsere Helferinnen und Helfer!
We went to the DESY in Hamburg with our host-microbe samples to do super high-resolution scanning. First steps to scan frozen and not-contrasted samples.
From 20 to 22 September is time again for the Maritime Week along the Weser Promenade Schlachte!
As in the last few years, we will introduce ourselves and our research to the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology on September 21 and 22 on the research mile, along with about another 30 resea...
Benedikts paper is published - if you like to see more about the connection of high resolution 3D scanning with MALDI-MSI have a look here...
Combining metagenomic and microscopic techniques, a new study reveals that archaea are likely an important component of the microbial community for organic matter remineralization.
The tiny organisms cling to oil droplets and perform a great feat: As a single organism, they may produce methane from oil by a process called alkane disproportionation. Previously this was only known from symbioses between bacteria and archaea. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine...
Algae blooms regularly make for pretty, swirly satellite photos of lakes and oceans. They also make the news occasionally for poisoning fish, people and other animals. What's less frequently discussed is the outsize role they play in global carbon...
Bund und norddeutsche Länder unterzeichnen Vereinbarung zum Aufbau des Verbunds deutscher Meeresforschungseinrichtungen
Enzymes are biocatalysts that are crucial for the degradation of seaweed biomass in oceans. For the first time, an international team of 19 scientists recently decoded the complete degradation pathway of the algal polysaccharide Ulvan by biocatalysts from a marine bacterium. The results of their ...
In March, 16 MarMic students from the Class of 2022 successfully defended their Master thesis.
The South Pacific Gyre is an ocean desert. However, due to its vast size the microbial inhabitants of the South Pacific Gyre contribute significantly to global biogeochemical cycles. In an unparalleled investigation, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germ...
Kentron, a bacterial symbiont of ciliates, turns cellular waste products into biomass. It is the first known sulfur-oxidizing symbiont to be entirely heterotrophic. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology now report about this unexpected bacterium that turns waste into f...
On June 15, 2019, the University of Bremen again invited all interested people from Bremen and to an OPEN CAMPUS. We were there and showed you the world of the smallest inhabitants on the university campus.
Janine, Dennis and Patric went to the Dreiswerd lab in Münster to look at new spraying methods and look at the newest super high resolution MALDI -imaging source
Trichoplax, one of the simplest animals on Earth, lives in a highly specific and intimate symbiosis with two types of bacteria. The first, Grellia, is related to parasitic bacteria that cause typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. But intriguingly, Grellia does not appear to harm Trichoplax. Th...
How microorganisms shape the dynamic evolution of our planet
From March 18, 2019, our institute is excited to welcome a new research group: Headed by Susanne Erdmann, the new group is centered on viruses infecting archaea.
The exchange of nitrogen between the atmosphere and organic matter is crucial for life on Earth because nitrogen is a major component of essential molecules such as proteins and DNA. One major route for this exchange, discovered only in the 1990s, is the anammox pathway found in certain bacteria....
Where the Earth’s plates meet, there is evidence of their motion. An expedition of the Research Vessel POLARSTERN will explore this activity in the Southern Ocean in detail. The major focus of the MARUM expedition is to examine hot vents and cold seeps. This will be the first deployment of the re...
In the sandy bottom of warm coastal waters lives Paracatenula – a small worm that has neither mouth, nor gut. Nevertheless, it lacks nothing thanks to Riegeria, the bacterium that fills most of the body of the tiny worm. Riegeria looks after its h...
With a share of up to ten percent, ethane is the second most common component of natural gas and is present in deep-seated land and marine gas deposits all around the world. Up to now, it was unclear how ethane is degraded in the absence of oxygen. A team of researchers from the Helmholtz Centre ...
Invitation to the MPI seminar
Nitric oxide (NO) is a central molecule of the global nitrogen cycle. A study by Boran Kartal from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany, and colleagues reveals that microorganisms can grow on NO at concentrations that would be lethal to all other lifeforms. Their results, whi...
Methane is not only a powerful greenhouse gas, but also a source of energy. Microorganisms therefore use it for their metabolism. They do so much more frequently and in more ways than was previously assumed, as revealed by a study now published in Nature Microbiology by researchers from the Max P...
Dual honour for researchers at the MPI Bremen: Rafael Laso-Pérez and Stefan Becker each receive the MARUM Research Award 2019 for their outstanding dissertations.
Am 13. Februar 2019 ist es soweit: An der Universität Bremen findet der zweite Bremer Ocean Day statt.
Am 13. Februar 2019 ist es soweit: An der Universität Bremen findet der zweite Bremer Ocean Day statt.
For his dissertation "Biocatalytic quantification of laminarin – a major carbohydrate polymer in the ocean" Stefan Becker receives this years' MARUM Research Award. The award is presented to young marine scientists who have written outstanding master's or doctoral theses.
Have you ever heard of the "Magnetic spiral from Greifswald"? Probably not, but most likely you have already encountered it, albeit unknowingly. The magnetic spiral inhabits the muddy bottom of ponds, rivers, lakes and oceans. It is tiny, very fascinating and full of potential. That's why it was ...
For his dissertation "A novel mechanism for the anaerobic degradation of non-methane hydrocarbons in archaea", which he completed with distinction, Rafael Laso-Pérez receives this years' MARUM Research Award.
A plea by 50 international scientists, including MPI Director Rudolf Amann, in the journal Science: Those who make their data available to other researchers without restriction must receive the appropriate recognition.
Researchers from the Centre Scientifique de Monaco (CSM), the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen and the University of Kiel have succeeded in directly measuring three key parameters necessary for skeleton formation in a live tropical coral. This way, they completely characteri...
The ammonia oxidizing archaea, or Thaumarchaeota, are amongst the most abundant marine microorganisms. Yet, we are still discovering which factors allow them to thrive in the ocean. A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen and the University of Vienna was no...
Benedikt Geier, PhD student in the Department of Symbiosis at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, was awarded this year's MSI Award for his innovative method for visualizing and investigating symbioses.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major cause of global warming. Researchers use complex computer models to calculate the global circulation of this greenhouse gas. The oceans have a major influence on climate regulation. New research now helps to calculate this influence more precisely. These new findin...
Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier überreicht am Sonntag in Erfurt den 26. Deutschen Umweltpreis der Deutschen Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU). Die mit 500.000 Euro höchstdotierte unabhängige Umweltauszeichnung Europas teilen sich 2018 die Meeresbiologin Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius (Alfred-Wegener-I...
From October 1, 2018, our institute is excited to welcome a new research group: Headed by Tristan Wagner, the new group is dedicated to better understand the life of methanogenic microorganisms.
It takes time to do a thing well, this also and specifically applies to the deep sea. In a long-term study, marine scientists from Bremen for the first time observed the colonization of a deep-sea mud volcano after its eruption. Only slowly, rich life develops around the crater. The first settler...