An important aspect of the biodiversity of ecosystems is the richness and structure of their communities. In marine benthic and pelagic communities microorganisms like archaea, bacteria, and single cell eukaryotes are the most diverse compartments, but the spatial and temporal distributions of microbial communities as well as the rules governing their assembly are not understood. There is yet a growing body of literature that shows that microbial patterns in the environment are far from being random. Because microbes are primary actors in the biogeochemical cycles, understanding community dynamics is critical to determine how the biosphere responds to environmental conditions, especially in the context of rapid global changes.

Microbial ecology examines community patterns over spatial, temporal, and environmental gradients as well as the factors mostly responsible for such patterns. Concepts that have been traditionally used in plant and animal ecology are used, but also the latest trends in high-throughput molecular analyses and ecological modelling. Structural genes such as ribosomal genes or genes involved in key biogeochemical functions may be used to describe diversity patterns in their environmental context.

Central areas of research pertain to the exploration of 1) the relevant scales to describe the microbial community structure, composition, and abundance, 2) the amount of deterministic vs. random control of those patterns, 3) the strength of interactions among organisms, and 4) ecosystem dynamics and emergent properties so as to understand how the communities could respond to either disturbances or environmental variations. Our main study areas include coastal sands and deep-sea sediments, including those of the central Arctic Ocean.

Contact: A. Ramette, M. Jacob, S. Schöttner

Literature:  

Kanzog, C. & A. Ramette (2009). Microbial colonisation of artificial and deep-sea sediments in the Arctic Ocean. Marine Ecology DOI 10.1111/j.1439-0485.2009.00290.x

Ramette, A. (2009). Quantitative community fingerprinting methods for estimating the abundance of operational taxonomic units in natural microbial communities. Applied Environmental Microbiology 75 (8): 2495-2505. 

Schöttner, S., Hoffmann, F., Wild, C., Rapp, H.T., Boetius, A. & A. Ramette (2009). Inter- and intra-habitat bacterial diversity associated with cold-water corals. ISME Journal 3: 756-759.