Why Symbiomes?
We live in a symbiotic world, where virtually all plants and animals host diverse communities of microbes, forming complex entities called metaorganisms. Traditional ecological research has focused on interactions like predation and competition, but metaorganisms often engage in cooperative, synergistic relationships with other metaorganisms more frequently than previously recognized.
These interactions create a symbiome—a network of integrated metaorganisms that develops unique characteristics shaped by the environmental conditions of its habitat. Symbiomes can influence ecosystem dynamics, from local biogeochemical cycles to overall ecosystem functioning.
At the Marine Symbiomes Research Group, we study how host-microbe interactions affect the physiology, ecology, and resilience of metaorganisms. By integrating microbial, host, and environmental data across biological scales, we aim to uncover how metaorganisms shape their ecosystems and adapt to changing marine environments.
Our recent study in Communications Biology shows that Posidonia oceanica leaves exhibit complete nitrogen cycling, with key transformations accelerating under ocean acidification. These microbial interactions are crucial for seagrass resilience in a changing ocean.
In our New Phytologist commentary, co-authored with Sairah Malkin, we discuss Scholz et al. (2021), who reveal the widespread association between aquatic plant rhizospheres and cable bacteria, highlighting their ecological significance.
In our Frontiers in Microbiology paper, we investigated how zebra mussels influence nitrogen processes, focusing on the role of their microbiome at the ecosystem scale. Our findings highlight their impact on nitrogen cycling and reveal, for the first time, their contribution to dinitrogen fixation.
Our Projects
Our research investigates the biogeochemical dynamics of host-microbe interactions in marine ecosystems, focusing on their responses to climate change. We aim to uncover how these interactions regulate critical metabolic pathways in metaorganisms and mediate carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycling, thereby shaping ecosystem function. To achieve this, we integrate multiple biological scales and maintain an environmental perspective, assessing the resilience and adaptive potential of symbiotic marine organisms amid environmental shifts.
