ERC Advanced Grant awarded to Dagmar Woebken

The WinMicAct project 

More than 40 percent of the world's land area is covered by drylands. However, due to climate change and unsustainable land management practices, this number is constantly increasing. In these extreme habitats, soil microorganisms adapted to the desert climate fulfil important ecosystem functions. Microbes on the soil surface - in the so-called biological soil crust - provide carbon and nitrogen, two key factors for soil fertility. They also help to store water and prevent soil erosion.

Until now, it has been assumed that microbial activity in arid deserts is limited to rare, short and unpredictable rainfall events. However, other, so-called non-rainwater inputs also exist in deserts - such as fog, dew and water vapor adsorption. "These are more common than rain in many deserts and are therefore more reliable sources of water. Yet, little is known about whether microorganisms can utilize these water sources for reactivation. The associated microbial activities and their overall contribution to microbially driven ecosystem processes are also largely unknown," explains microbiologist Dagmar Woebken.

In her ERC-funded research project WinMicAct, Woebken together with a team of national and international collaborators will explore the importance of these non-rainwater inputs for microbial activities and the preservation of microbial diversity. Furthermore, the project aims to estimate the contribution of these activities at the ecosystem level in comparison to rain-driven activity. The project will also consider expected changes in the pattern of rainfall and non-rainwater inputs due to climate change and can thus provide the basis for future investigations and modelling of climate change effects on ecosystem processes in drylands.

About Dagmar Woebken

Dagmar Woebken is Associate Professor and head of the Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science in the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna. Woebken received her PhD in 2007 from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, followed by postdoctoral work at Stanford University in collaboration with NASA's Ames Research Center and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, USA. She joined the University of Vienna in 2012 to start her own research group, with which she established the application of single-cell analysis techniques in terrestrial systems.
Woebken's research at CeMESS focuses on terrestrial microbiology, from the physiology of soil microorganisms to their importance in nutrient cycles and plant-microorganisms interactions. A particular focus is on how soil microorganisms survive stress situations, such as limited oxygen, nutrients or water. The aim is to understand the importance of soil microorganisms for the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, particularly with regard to increasing drought stress as a result of climate change. Woebken previously received an ERC Starting Grant in 2014 to investigate dormancy of soil microorganisms; WinMicAct is now her second ERC-funded project.