- Departments
- ERC Research Group for Ecological Genomics
- People
- Isabella Maria Wilkie
Isabella Maria Wilkie
PhD Student
ERC Research Group for Ecological Genomics
MPI for Marine Microbiology
Celsiusstr. 1
D-28359 Bremen
Germany
|
Room: |
3225 |
|
Phone: |
About me
I am a fourth-year PhD student specialising in the study of the Verrucomicrobiota phylum. My research employs computational approaches to explore their genetic potential and understand their ecological niches. Broadly speaking, I investigate the temporal and spatial dynamics of these microorganisms. My PhD has included some sampling expeditions, collecting surface water in Helgoland and gathering coastal water samples around South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean.
Relevant Publications
Lonsing, A., Martens, G. A., Resteu, A., Kizina, J., Wilkie, I., Bahr, A., & Harder, J. (2025). Anaerobic limonene metabolism in a methanogenic enrichment involves a glycine radical enzyme. Environmental Microbiology, 27(11). https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.70192.
Wilkie, I., & Orellana, L. H. (2025). Elusive marine verrucomicrobiota: Seasonally abundant members of the novel genera Seribacter and Chordibacter specialize in degrading sulfated glycans. Systematic and Applied Microbiology, 48(1), 126562. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.syapm.2024.126562.
Xu, Y., Schultz-Johansen, M., Yao, H., Wilkie, I., Klau, L. J., Chen, Y., Orellana, L. H., Aachmann, F. L., Farhan, M., Gu, B., Reintjes, G., Vidal-Melgosa, S., Qiao, D., Cao, Y., & Hehemann, J.-H. (2024). Phosphate Starvation Stops Bacteria Digesting Algal Fucan That Sequesters Carbon. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.07.588495.
Field work
August 2022: Helgoland, North Sea
Assisted in the POMPU year-round-sampling. Sampling surface water for genomic, proteomic, and microscopic analyses.
December 2022: Punta Arenas > South Georgia > Cape Town
Sampling on the PS133/2 to collect surface sediment and water samples for genomic and microscopic analyses.
Conferences and workshops
October 2025: Symposium on Aquatic Microbial Ecology (SAME 18), Barcelona (SP)
Oral presentation entitled "Niche-driven specialization of the family Akkermansiaceae across marine and gut ecosystems".
July 2025: Ecological and evolutionary genomics GRS and GRC, Lucca (IT)
Presented a poster, "Niche-driven specialization of the family Akkermansiaceae across marine and gut ecosystems".
November 2024: Structural bioinformatics, EMBL (online)
Attended a one-week workshop on obtaining and interpreting experimental and predicted protein structures.
June 2024: Marine microbes GRS and GRC, Les Diablerets (CH)
Presenting a poster with the title "Decoding genetic variation in Verrucomicrobiota populations over 10 years of spring blooms".
May 2024: It MA(t)TER(s), Bremen (DE)
Gave a presentation entitled "Decoding genetic variation in Verrucomicrobiota populations over ten years of spring blooms".
July 2023: Applied and environmental microbiology GRC, South Hadley (US)
Presented a poster and flash talk titled "Tracking speciation and intra-population diversity within Verrucomicrobiota populations in the Helgoland time series".
October - November 2022: EBAME 7, Brest (FR)
Attended a two week workshop on approaches in microbial ecogenomics. Gave a flashtalk.
Education
MSc. in Marine Microbiology - International Max Planck Research School for Marine Microbiology, Bremen (DE)
October 2020 - March 2022.
BSc. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology - Jacobs University, Bremen (DE)
September 2017 - June 2020.