Current Aspects of
Environmental and Ecological Microbiology
Minisymposium, organized by the Graduate Course
MICROBIAL ECOLOGY
University of Zürich
Institute of Plant Biology / Department of Microbiology
Friday, December 22, 08.30 - 16.00
Location: Large Lecture Hall of the Institute of Plant Biology / Microbiology
Zollikerstrasse 107, 8008 Zürich
Guests are invited to attend
Objectives and Scope
Students of the Microbial Ecology Course 2000 will present their course research results and advisors of the course will briefly introduce the kind of research they are themselves involved in. The contributions will provide a better understanding of the interactions of microbes with metals, the microbes' role in mediating corrosion processes and their behavior as members of biofilms. We hope that these presentations will inspire interest in research with ecological perspectives; research which in turn might provide new solutions to current environmental problems. The contributions will also broaden the often narrow focus of the every-day research work and offer students and established investigators an ecological approach to answering environmental and geobiological questions.
Discussion after each presentation; the times given in the program include the discussion period. Sessions are chaired by the course students who will introduce the speakers, keep the time schedule and assure the proper functioning of the room infrastructure,
PROGRAM
08.30 Kurt Hanselmann Introduction
08.40 Guest Lecture
Jakob Zopfi
Danish Center for Earth System Science (DCESS) and Institute of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense
on
Thioploca spp. and their influence on the biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen and sulfur in the upwelling area off the coast of Chile
INTERMISSION
Session 1: Microbe-metal interactions
chaired by Gabriela Nava Blöchliger & Munti Yuhana
10.00 Patricia Colberg
Towards an understanding of metal tolerance in anaerobic microbial communities
10.15 Sabine Rahm and Susanne Uehlinger
Effects of copper on rates of microbial sulfate reduction in metal-free lake sediments10.40 Patricia Muniz & Sohel Quaderi Saikat
Arsenic tolerance of purple non-sulfur bacteria and presence of cytochromes in culture medium
11.05 Selim M. Abu
Determination of arsenic transforming activity by bacteria collected from different sediment samples in Bangladesh
11.20 Janine Kessi
Selenite reduction by purple non-sulfur bacteria
11.40 LUNCH
Session 2: Corrosive biofilms
chaired by Miriam Ender & Patricia Muniz
13.15 Judith Hübscher
Isolation and molecular characterization of bacteria grown in biofilms on various metal surfaces
13.30 Marcello Marchiani
BIC - Biofilm influenced corrosion: Establishment and community composition of microbial biofilms on metal surfaces
Session 3: Nutrient scavenging
chaired by Sabine Rahm & Judith Hübscher
13.50 Matthias Wagner
Iron oxides as ion scavengers in natural environments
14.05 Gabriela Nava Blöchliger & Miriam Ender
Entrapping anions in ferric oxyhydroxide substrates accessible to microorganisms
14.30 Caroline Brunner
Microbially mediated phosphate mobilization from amorphous iron-oxide surface films - an outlook
INTERMISSION
Session 4: Biofilms from high-mountain aquatic habitats
chaired by Susanne Uehlinger & Selim M. Abu
14.55 Munti Yuhana
Phylogenetic diversity of biofilm-forming bacteria isolated from cold high-mountain lakes
15.15 Philipp Roelli
Microbial activities measured with biofilm pH-sensors in high-mountain aquatic ecosystems - a modelling approach
15.35 Kurt Hanselmann Summary
End of Minisymposium
16.00 Christmas Party Small lecture Hall