Welcome to the Microbial Oceanography Lab at the University of Vienna

Marine microbes are uniquely important to life and form the major pillars of the biosphere. Their unique metabolisms allow marine microbes to carry out many steps of the biogeochemical cycles that other organisms are unable to complete.

Microbial oceanography focuses on deciphering the metabolic activity of Bacteria and Archaea thriving in the open ocean and relating their community composition to the biogeochemical fluxes in the water masses. This requires an interdisciplinary approach linking microbial and molecular ecology to biogeochemistry and to large scale water mass transport studied in physical oceanography.

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Our main focus is the microbial oceanography of the deep ocean where the prokaryotic activity is relatively low compared to the euphotic zone. The deep ocean comprises about 70% of the total ocean volume and hence deep-water microbes mediate a substantial fraction of the biogeochemical cycles with thus far unknown metabolic pathways. We develop and improve available methods in molecular biology and biogeochemistry to make them usable in the most oligotrophic parts of the ocean. Then the information from biology and biogeochemistry is linked for a better understanding of how the microbial community might work in the dark ocean.

News

19.03.2024
 

Publication on the role of the microbial carbon pump under climate change conditions published.

Publication
05.03.2024
 

Exhibition in the UBB foyer hosted by MOVIE

News
28.02.2024
 

Congrats to Helena Cvetkovic defending her MSc thesis successfully.

News
29.01.2024
 

Bacterial degradation of ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi organic matter

Publication
16.01.2024
 

Congrats to Julia Wolfer defending her MSc thesis successfully.

News
20.11.2023
 

1st International Forum on Ocean Negative Carbon Emissions held in Xiamen

Events

Video Testimonials

Maria Pinto, PhD Student

Chie Amano, PostDoc

Federico Baltar, Assistant Professor