Selected publications

The vertical flux of marine snow reduces atmospheric CO2. In particular, particle associated prokaryotes are responsible for organic C-loss. Analysis of prokaryotic heterotrophic production a. species richness in the North Atlantic reveal that C- loss a. associated microbial richness are different with particle fractions. Especially large, fast-sinking particles drive C-flux a. -sequestration.

Phaeocystis pouchetii regularly dominates Arctic marine plankton and is considered a key food source supporting highly productive fisheries. But the relevance of biomass transfer to higher trophic levels is debated. This study shows that endometabolic markers can be correlated to the metabolic state of Phaeocystis populations, which allows testing the influence on zooplankton trophic transfer.

The neonicotinoid imidacloprid (IMI) is one of the most extensively applied neuro-active insecticides worldwide and continues to enter surface waters in many countries despite a recent ban for outdoor use in the EU. The study assessed the effects of pure IMI and its commercial formulation Confidor® on the aquatic oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus, a key species in freshwater sediments.

The authors have shown that shifts in microbial communities triggered by chronic exposure to low concentrations of silver nanoparticles increases the community tolerance to silver, as described in the pollution-induced community tolerance (PICT) concept, with consequences for leaf litter decomposition, a pivotal process in forest streams. 

The largest freshwater bacterium, Achromatium oxaliferum, is highly flexible in its requirements. The bacterial strains from the different ecosystems do not differ in their gene content, but rather choose what to express.

The authors developed a new, probability-based formalism for modeling species distribution.The Network-based Probabilistic Connectivity (NPC) can provide predictions about the distribution and persistence of species at different time scales, and their dependence on patch distribution and patch density in the landscape.

Potential sediment methane production rates increase along the reservoir cascade in the Upper Mekong River. Ebullition is an important but previously overlooked pathway for methane emission. Both diffusive and ebullitive fluxes show high intra and inter reservoir variability. Fluxes fall into the low-to-mid range of global estimates for hydropower reservoirs.

This study indicates that nod-gene-targeted long-read sequencing can be a powerful tool for studying the ecology of oxygenic denitrifiers, and the results also suggest that oxygenic these novel microbes are prevalent and abundant in different terrestrial samples, where they could play an important, but yet overlooked role in nitrogen transformations.