Research at DOME spans from ecophysiology, genomics, and evolution of key microorganisms in selected ecosystems to interactions of microbes among each other and with eukaryotes. Browse specific areas of active ongoing research below, or explore the researcher profiles of our principle investigators to learn more.

Current Projects

Symbiosis
 

If all microbial life disappeared from Earth, our world would change dramatically. Microorganisms are essential for nutrient recycling, decomposing...
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Symbiosis
 

Extremely premature infants, which are born before the 28th week of gestation and weighing <1,000 grams, are a highly vulnerable patient group. They...
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Nutrient cycles
 

Aquatic ecosystems are a major source of the potent greenhouse gas methane, accounting for half of the global methane emissions. Biogenic methane is...
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Symbiosis
 

Sea- and saltmarsh grasses thrive along most of Earth’s coastlines. They form the basis for some of the most ecologically and economically valuable...
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Virus-host interactions
 

Viruses are the most abundant biological entities infecting all cellular life forms with major consequences for their individual hosts and entire...
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Symbiosis
 

BiOcean5D is a major interdisciplinary project designed to better understand the impact of human activity on Europe's seas and coastlines.
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Technology / method development
 

The discovery of antibiotics is one of the greatest achievements in human medicine. However, the introduction and overuse of antibiotics led towards...
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Symbiosis
 

Lucinid clams host a nutritional symbiosis with chemosynthetic sulfide-oxidizing bacteria within gill epithelial cells. Their ancient age and...
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Symbiosis
 

Virtually every animal on Earth evolved with and among trillions of microbes in the environment. Interactions with these microbes are mostly invisible...
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Nutrient cycles
 

Nitrogen (N) is essential for all life on Earth and the most abundant element in the atmosphere, where it mainly occurs as dinitrogen gas (N2)....
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Microbial physiology
 

Many bacterial species produce secondary metabolites that are not essential for their growth but provide advantages in environmental adaptation, e.g....
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Microbial physiology
 

Wetlands are important carbon sinks but at the same time a major global source of the greenhouse gas methane. Wetlands are responsible for about a...
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Microbial physiology
 

The environmental deposition of nitrogen used in food production and from fossil fuel combustion exceeds the amounts of biologically fixed nitrogen in...
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