Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Polz

 

 

 

 

 

Professor at the Division of Microbial Ecology

☎ +43 1 4277 91207

✉ martin.f.polz@univie.ac.at

Microbes are the most abundant and diverse organisms on the planet. Yet how this diversity is structured in the environment remains poorly understood. Martin’s group is broadly interested in structure-function relationships within microbial communities. How do gene flow, environmental interactions, and selection structure populations? How does viral predation drive the ecology and evolution of microbes? How fast do microbes grow in environmental samples?

The group addresses these questions by a combination of in situ molecular approaches, environmental genomics, traditional physiological and genetic techniques, and modelling. They study patterns of diversity among co-occurring microbes from the level of the entire community to the individual genome and gene. Their model systems include marine microbes as well as animal microbiomes. Their latest projects focus on microbe-virus interactions and on growth dynamics under environmental conditions.

Research Topics

Join the Team

If you are interested in joining our team, explore our open positions and learn more about available PhD and postdoc stipends here.

Teaching

To view Martin Polz' teaching activities at the University of Vienna, visit u:find.

Group Members

 Publications

Showing entries 13 - 18 out of 22
Yang, J. Y., Fang, W., Miranda-Sanchez, F., Brown, J. M., Kauffman, K. M., Acevero, C. M., Bartel, D. P., Polz, M. F., & Kelly, L. (2021). Degradation of host translational machinery drives tRNA acquisition in viruses. Cell Systems, 12(8), 771-779.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2021.05.019
Che, Y., Yang, Y., Xu, X., Břinda, K., Polz, M. F., Hanage, W. P., & Zhang, T. (2021). Reply to Shaw: Challenges for enrichment analysis of AMR gene-bearing plasmids. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(21), Article e2104557118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2104557118
Che, Y., Yang, Y., Xu, X., Brinda, K., Polz, M. F., Hanage, W. P., & Zhang, T. (2021). Conjugative plasmids interact with insertion sequences to shape the horizontal transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(6), Article e2008731118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2008731118
Alcamán-Arias, M. E., Fuentes-Alburquenque, S., Vergara-Barros, P., Cifuentes-Anticevic, J., Verdugo, J., Polz, M. F., Farias, L., Pedrós-Alió, C., & Ruiz-Diez, B. (2021). Coastal bacterial community resoponse to glacier melting in the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Microorganisms, 9(1), Article 88. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9010088
Zakem, E. J., Polz, M. F., & Follows, M. J. (2020). Redox-informed models of global biogeochemical cycles. Nature Communications, 11(1), Article 5680. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19454-w
Polz, M. F., & Cordero, O. X. (2020). The genetic law of the minimum. Science, 370(6517), 655-656. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf2588