Press release

From September 24 to 25, it was once again time for the Bremen Research Mile as part of the Maritime Week!

On September 26, 2022, we welcomed 15 new MarMics (students in our International Max Planck Research School of Marine Microbiology) to our institute, the second largest class ever.

News

Friday, September 16, 2022
at 2:00 p.m. (14:00 Uhr) in the lecture hall 4012


Naomi Levine (University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA)

will give a seminar with the title:

"Breaking open the microbial black-box to improve our understanding of biogeochemical cycling"

 You are welcome to join.

Thursday, September 8, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr) in the lecture hall 4012


Maria Zimmermann-Kogadeeva and Michael Zimmermann (EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany)

will give a seminar with the title:

"Quantifying microbiota-host metabolic interactions"

 You are welcome to join.

With a scientific symposium our institute celebrates its first 30 years

News

Dying reefs and once-vibrant corals that have since lost all colour: climate change is having massive effects on the architects of undersea cities. As waters grow warmer, the phenomenon of “coral bleaching” continues to spread. Yet not all corals are equally susceptible. An international team led...

Thursday, August 9, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Amelia-Elena Rotaru (Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Geoconductors transferring electrons between species involved in seabed methane emissions"

 You are welcome to j...

Thursday, August 8, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Dr. Christian Voolstra (Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Germany)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Coral reefs and climate change - Mitigating the ecological collapse"

 You are welcome to join.

Monday, July 18, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Dr. Cornelia Welte (Radboud University, Nijmegen, NL)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Climate change microbiology: novel insights into methane cycling archaea"

You are welcome to join.

Thursday, June 30, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Florian Schüder (Yale University, USA)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Development and application of smart DNA probes for multiplexed super-resolution microscopy"

You are welcome to join.

How can we know what bacteria eat? In contrast to animals, they have no trunks, specialized teeth or beaks that provide clues whether the preferred food consists of leaves, meat, small insects or grain. However, bacteria have specific enzymes, which can tell us a lot about their favorite dish. An...

Thursday, June 16, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Prof. Dr. Hendrik Schäfer (University of Warwick, UK)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"From saltmarshes to the Arctic Ocean - microbial cycling of organosulfur compounds"

 You are welcome to join.

Thursday, June 14, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Dr. Fabien Burki (Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"On the origin of plastids: new insights from elusive marine microbes"

 You are welcome to join.

Thursday, June 2, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Prof. Dr. Helle Ploug (Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Gothenburg)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"On the Secret Life of Chain Forming Diatoms"

You are welcome to join.

An international research team headed by the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Aarhus University and the Science for Life Lab in Uppsala has developed tiny particles that measure the oxygen concentration in their surroundings. In this way, they can track fluid flow and oxyge...

As of March 1^st, 2022, our institute is hosting a new Max Planck Research Group, led by Dr. Laetitia Wilkins. Wilkins and her team focus on the research of marine host-microbe interactions, their evolution, and their role in ecosystem function and stability.

Thursday, April 28, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Dr. Jonathan D. Cybulski (Smithonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama, https://www.jonathancybulski.com/)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Investigating coral assemblages through a paleoecological and geochemical lens:Using Hong Kong as...

News

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology now report that seagrasses release large amounts of sugar, largely in the form of sucrose, into their soils – worldwide more than 1 million tons of sucrose, enough for 32 billion cans of coke. Such high concentrations of sugar are s...

Thursday, April 28, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Nathalie Henriksen (DTU Copenhagen)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"The ecological roles of marine microbial secondary metabolites: Elucidating secondary metabolite dynamics during microbial community succession"

You are welcome to join.

Zukunftstag am MPI 2022

Thursday, March 24, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Dr. Barbara Campbell (Clemson University South Carolina, USA)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Microbes in a “Sea” of Change: It’s not all about Salinity in Estuaries"

 You are welcome to join.

The seminar is hosted by Laetitia Wilkins.

Jan-Hendrik Hehemann has been awarded the ERC Consolidator Grant, one of the European Research Council's most highly endowed awards. He will each receive around 2 million euros for his basic research on marine carbon cycling in the coming years.

Tiny predatory bacteria attack microorganisms. These ultramicrobacteria are widely distributed, for example, in sewage treatment plants and in the seafloor. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen now present this exciting finding in the journal Applied and Envir...

Thursday, March 10, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Dr. David Needham (Geomar, Kiel, Germany)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Born to be wild: Resolving uncultivated microbe-to-microbe interactions"

 You are welcome to join.

Clarissa Karthäuser receives this year's MARUM Research Prize for her dissertation "Sinking particles control fixed nitrogen-loss from the Peruvian oxygen minimum zone". The award is presented to young marine scientists who have written outstanding master's or doctoral theses.

Seagrass meadows play an important role in the marine carbon cycle and our climate. On the one hand, they sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground, on the other hand, they emit the potent greenhouse gas methane. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Micro...

Massive sponge gardens thrive on top of seamounts in the Central Arctic Ocean, one of the most oligotrophic seas on Earth. They appear to feed on the remnants of an extinct fauna. Microorganisms support the sponges in exploiting this fluffy material as a source of food and energy. Scientists from...

Hi my name is Tomasz and I will be working as laboratory assistant in MS-group in Symbiosis department. An internship in the institute is part of my studies: Chemical and Biotechnical Science at the Business Academy Aarhus. I have always enjoyed working in a field of chemistry and this is the rea...

Thursday, Januar 27, 2022
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Prof. Dr. Sinikka Lennartz (University of Oldenburg, Germany)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"From a drop to the ocean: scaling up microbial interactions with dissolved organic matter"

 You are welcome to join.

Hello everyone!

My name is Jana and I will be working on the sea4soCiety project to better understand the role of metabolites in carbon sequestration within coastal environments. Previously, my research focused on the interaction between organic matter and metals in aquatic systems. I am particu...

Microorganisms can convert oil into natural gas, i.e. methane. Until recently, it was thought that this conversion was only possible through the cooperation of different organisms. In 2019, Rafael Laso-Pérez and Gunter Wegener from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology suggested that a...

Thursday, December 09, 2021 
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00h)

Julian Merder (ICBM, University Oldenburg, Germany)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Dissoled organic compounds with synchronous dynamics share chemical properties and origin (case study Helgoland) and ICBM Ocean"

You are welcome to join.

On December 3, 2021, the University of Bremen and the Dr. Hans Riegel Foundation honored pupils in the region for their outstanding pre-scientific work. Winning the prize in the Physics category is Svenja Paulsen, who carried out parts of her now award-winning project work with us at the Max Plan...

Thursday, November 11, 2021
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00 Uhr)

Dr. Karen Lloyd(University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Texas, USA)
will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Linking deepy-buried microbial ecosystems to plate tectonics through chemolithoautotrophy"

 You are welcome to join.

The ARB software, a graphically oriented package comprising various tools for sequence database handling and data analysis, has moved one step further. With their latest update, users now profit from many new features as well as improved stability.

Seagrasses cover large swathes of shallow coastal seas, where they provide a vital habitat. They also remove large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere and store it in the ecosystem. However, seagrasses need nutrients to thrive, particularly nitrogen. Up to now, researchers have as...

Grace D'Angelo presented her poster entitled, 'Exploring Carbon Cycling in Complex Microbial Communities with Metaproteome-derived Stable Isotope Fingerprints' at the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference. This project and poster are part of collaborative work with the Kleiner ...

Thursday, October 28, 2021 
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00h)

Dr. Edward Ruby (Alfred Wegener Institute, Helgoland, Germany)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Top-down and bottom-up processes associated with microzooplankton during phytoplankton blooms"

You are welcome to join.

Carbon occurs on the Earth in a variety of structures and forms. Elemental Carbon is usually formed under conditions of high pressure and temperature. Researchers have now, for the first time, identified microorganisms that produce elemental carbon. The team, which includes Dr. Gunter Wegener of ...

Tuesday, October 12, 2021 
at 1:00 p.m. (13:00h)

Dr. Edward Ruby (Pacific Biosciences Research Center, Kewalo Marine Laboratory, University of Hawaii)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Uncovering the role of nutritional rhythms in the squid-vibrio symbiosis"

You are welcome to j...

Monday, October 11, 2021 
at 2:30 p.m. (14:30h)

Dr. Edward Ruby (Pacific Biosciences Research Center, Kewalo Marine Laboratory, University of Hawaii)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Mechanisms underlying bacterial persistence in a mutualism"

You are welcome to join.

Bacteria from the group Verrucomicrobiota specialize in consuming hard to degrade sugars during spring blooms in the North Sea.

On September 27, 2021, we welcomed 9 new MarMic Master students to the International Max Planck Research School of Marine Microbiology.

A new study in ISME Journal provides exciting insights into the life of marine viruses in the North Sea during the spring bloom. Off the offshore island of Helgoland, researchers led by Nina Bartlau from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology found a dynamic viral community that can str...

The group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and AWI director is honored for her science communication.

Every year, the Max Planck Society (MPS) awards 20 trainee prizes to the best trainees at its 86 institutes and research facilities. This year, one of the prizes goes to Mandy Knutzen, a chemical laboratory assistant trainee at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Marine Microbiology.

Developing innovative and socially accepted approaches to improve the natural potential for carbon storage in vegetation-rich coastal ecosystems: that is the goal of the new research consortium sea4soCiety, in which the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen is participating. Germ...

De­vel­op­ing in­nov­at­ive and so­cially ac­cep­ted ap­proaches to im­prove the nat­ural po­ten­tial for car­bon stor­age in ve­get­a­tion-rich coastal eco­sys­tems: that is the goal of the new re­search con­sor­tiumsea4soCiety, in which the Max Planck In­sti­tute for Mar­ine Mi­cro­bi­o­logy in...

It was long assumed that cyanobacteria were mainly responsible for fixing nitrogen on early Earth, thus making nitrogen available to the biosphere. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, now show that purple sulfur bacteria could have contributed subst...

Life on Earth today relies on the presence of oxygen. However, the process behind the step-wise rise of oxygen levels in the atmosphere, which took place over nearly two billion years, remains under debate. An international team of scientists around Judith Klatt from the Max Planck Institute for ...

We congratulate Dr. Dolma Michellod on the successful defense of her PhD thesis entitled, "Investigating the lipid profile of animal-microbe symbioses."

A new laser ion source was installed in our lab. With the brand new AP-SMALDI-5AF we are able to do routine measurements at spatial resolution down to 5 µm. Additionally we increase measurement speed and sample throughput up to ten fold if a lower mass resolution is acceptable. 

Whether summer or winter, midnight sun or polar night – the sand on the ocean floor is always inhabited by the same bacteria. Although the microbial communities differ between different ocean regions, they do not change between the seasons. Presumably, there is simply no room for change. Research...

Scientists from three Max Planck Institutes (MPI), the MPI for Medical Research in Heidelberg, the MPI for Marine Microbiology in Bremen and the MPI for Biophysics in Frankfurt and the Radboud University in Nijmegen have successfully determined the structure of the enzyme which produces a large p...

This pandemic year has seen us confined to our homes and restricted from travelling the world. Not so for some microscopic bacteria in the ocean: Throughout the globe, they partner up with clams from the family Lucinidae, which live unseen in the sand beneath the shimmering blue waters of coastal...

Correlative chemical imaging in symbiosis: Our workflow, combining mass spectrometry imaging and microCT in a multimodal 3D atlas of a symbiotic invertebrate is now online in PNAS. Congrats Benedikt! 

doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023773118

Hot vents in the deep sea are home to microbes that feed on ethane. They were discovered recently from scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology. Now the researchers from Bremen succeeded in finding an important component in the microbial conversion of the gas. They were able...

Even if they seem very common for us – earthworms are special because they keep our soil healthy, all over the world. From the outside they appear simple and inconspicuous. But what the earthworm looks like from the inside, from its organs to the microbes and parasites that colonize it, has been ...

Study finds new explanation for the accumulation of organic compounds in oxygen-depleted marine areas.

INVITATION

to the digital Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology BREMEN SEMINAR SERIES

Prof. Glen P. Jackson, Ph.D.

Ming Hsieh (Shay) Distinguished Professor of Forensic and Investigative Science

(West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV)

"Charge TRansfer dissociation mass spectrometry (CTD-MS) for the structural characterization of...

Deep down in the ocean, valuable raw materials are stored, such as nodules of manganese, iron, cobalt and copper. The resources from these nodules could help meeting our increasing demand for rare metals. However, in addition to the nodules, there is another treasure down there: A complex ecosyst...

The mass2adduct paper, which describes a method for identifying adducts in mass-spec imaging data, was recently published. Congrats to the team consisting of Moritz Janda, Brandon KB Seah, Dennis Jakob, Janine Beckmann, Benedikt Geier, and Manuel Liebeke. Find out more at these links:

In the deep waters that underlie the productive zones of the ocean, there is a constant rain of organic material called 'marine snow'. Marine snow does not only look like real snow but also behaves similarly: Large flakes are rare and fall quickly while highly abundant smaller flakes take their t...

INVITATION

Thursday, May 6, 2021 
at 3:00 p.m. (15:00h)

Dr. Florent Lassalle (Imperial College London, UK)

will give a digital seminar with the title:

"Phylogenetic methods to model the processes of gene flow within microbial populations and reconstruct their evolutionary genetic history"

Deep down in the seafloor anaerobic microbes consume large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas when it enters atmosphere. Even though this process is a crucial element of the global carbon cycle, it is still poorly understood. Gunter Wegener from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microb...

Sponges: They are considered to be one of the most primitive forms of animal life, because they have neither locomotion organs nor a nervous system. A team around deep-sea scientist Antje Boetius has now discovered that sponges leave trails on the sea floor in the Arctic deep sea. They conclude t...

Thursday, February 25, 2021

at 3:00 p.m. (CET)

Ass. Prof. A. Murat Eren

• MBL Fellow, Marine Biological Laboratory
• Assistant Professor, The Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago
• Committee on Microbiology, The Biomedical Sciences Cluster at the University of Chicago

will give a seminar with the title:

"Teasing apart e...

Dennis Jakob presented a poster at the virtual It Ma(t)Ters conference on his Master's thesis work combining spatial metabolomics with spatial transcriptomics. With this work, Dennis won one of the poster prizes voted on by the conference attendees. 

This year, two researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology are receiving the prestigious Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society – a great honour for the researchers and our institute.

Scientists of the JPI Oceans project “MiningImpact” are embarking on a 6-week expedition to the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific. Their goal is to carry out independent scientific monitoring of the test of a pre-prototype nodule collector machine conducted in parallel from a ...

Bald eagles, as well as other wildlife, have been succumbing to a mysterious neurodegenerative disease in the southern United States since the 1990s. New research by a team from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in Germany and the University of Georgia, USA, and including researcher...

We congratulate Dennis Jakob, who successfully defended his Master's thesis entitled, "Combining MALDI MS imaging and transcriptomics to investigate phenotypic heterogeneity of intracellular symbionts in deep-sea mussels" 

We congratulate Tobias Vonnahme and his fellow authors to the IC-DLI „Deep Life Paper“ Award 2020!

Each spring in the North Sea, tiny algae grow in large numbers and release loads of sugar into the water – a feast for bacteria. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and the University of Greifswald have now investigated the order of the bacterial menu: first the easy-...

Too many carbohydrates, especially the simple, sweet sugars, can make you fat. Complex sugars like fiber, on the other hand, are an important factor for our health. Unlike simple sugars, we cannot easily digest these fibers in vegetables and grains. They are thought to work like a lubricant that ...

They are also called power plants of the cells: the mitochondria. They are present in almost all eukaryotic cells and they supply the cells with energy. Until now, it was assumed that only mitochondria can act as the cells’ energy providers. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Micro...

Invitation to the MPI seminar

Thursday, February 25, 2021

at 3:00 p.m. (CET)

Ass. Prof. A. Murat Eren

• MBL Fellow, Marine Biological Laboratory
• Assistant Professor, The Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago
• Committee on Microbiology, The Biomedical Sciences Cluster at the University of Chicago

wil...

Rather sweet than salty: In the ocean microalgae produce a lot of sugar during algae blooms. These enormous quantities of algal biomass are normally recycled rapidly by marine bacteria – a degradation process that is an important part of the global carbon cycle. Especially sugars have been consid...

EVENTS AT THE MPI BREMEN 

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, currently no events are taking place at our institute.

We are looking forward to welcome you hopefully soon again!

EVENTS AT THE MPI BREMEN 

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, currently no events are taking place at our institute.

We are looking forward to welcome you hopefully soon again!

Genetic information can be rapidly decoded using high-throughput methods and made available in openly accessible Digital Sequence Information (DSI) databases. This genetic information is used for comparative analyses and is indispensable for life sciences research. Examples include the research o...

A new study in the prestigious journal Science Advances shows that stress from rising water temperatures reduces ability of corals to adapt to ocean acidification.

EVENTS AT THE MPI BREMEN 

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, currently no events are taking place at our institute.

We are looking forward to welcome you hopefully soon again!

Due to a change in our telephone system we now have four-digit extensions – please update your contacts!

Join in to bring us a colorful Christmas season!

Gunter Wegener and Fanni Aspetsberger describe our current research on anaerobic microbes that feed on natural gas and crude oil.

Carbon monoxide is a very poisonous gas. Humans die within minutes when they inhale it. However, some microorganisms tolerate carbon monoxide and even use it to breathe and replicate. Knowledge about how these bacteria survive opens a window into the primeval times of the earth and the origin of ...

They are the true rulers of the earth: microorganisms. Without them there would be no air to breathe, no soil to grow food, no clean water. Microbes in the sea and ocean play a significant role in making the "System Earth" work. Yet little is known about them. This is why research on marine micro...

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen are developing a user-friendly method to reconstruct and analyze SSU rRNA from raw metagenome data.

Dr. Boran Kartal, group leader of the Microbial Physiology Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, was appointed cooperation professor at the Jacobs University in Bremen, which thereby strengthens its teaching and research activities. Kartal, togethe...

Deep-seabed mining is considered a way to address the increasing need of rare metals. However, the environmental impacts are considered to be substantial but remain largely unknown and clear regulatory standards are lacking. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Breme...

The Otto Mønsted Foundation has provided funding for Dr. Manuel Liebeke to join as a guest professor at the Danish Technical Institute in 2021. He will collaborate with the CeMiSt center in their new mass spectrometry imaging center and participate in talks, seminars, and other interactions with ...

Congratulations: Dr. Katharina Kitzinger has been awarded the Reimar Lüst Fellowship by the Max Planck Society (MPG). This will support the post-doctoral scientist’s research on the marine nitrogen cycle at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen for another two years.

We are pleased to welcome the MarMic class 2025. We wish the seven students much success and an exciting time with many new insights!

We humans need oxygen to breath – for a lot of microbes it is a lethal poison. That is why microorganisms have developed ways to render oxygen molecules harmless. Microbiologists from Bremen, Marburg and Grenoble have now succeeded in decrypting such a mechanism. They show, how methane-generating...