It was only relatively recently that tiny, single-celled thaumarchaea were discovered to exist and thrive in the pelagic ocean, where their population size of roughly ten billion quintillion cells makes them one of the most abundant organisms on our planet. A team of researchers from the MARUM – ...
Deep-sea mining could provide a way to address the increasing need of rare metals. However, its environmental impact is only partially known. In addition, there is a lack of clear standards to regulate mining and set binding thresholds for the impact on the organisms living in affected areas. Res...
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and the MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, Bremen have discovered a microbe that feeds on ethane at deep-sea hot vents. They also succeeded in cultivating this microbe in the laboratory. What is particularly remarkab...
In February, PhD-students conducted a mini-conference on microbiology. This year it took place in Bremen and was a great success for scientific and personal exchange. Here, one of the participants reports from the conference.
by Merle Ücker
Zukunftstag am MPI 2020
The oceans are a very important reservoir for carbon in the system of the earth. However, many aspects of the marine carbon cycle are still unknown. Scientists from Bremen and Bremerhaven now found out that sugar plays an important role in this process. At the same time, the sweet energy source i...
Katharina Kitzinger is awarded the BRIESE-Award for Marine Science
The German Marine Research Alliance introduces itself to guests from the domains of politics, business, science and civil society.
Marine microbes like to play hide and seek. Some bacteria often appear in samples but do not grow in the lab. At the same time, they are too few to be discovered via genetic analysis. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology now succeeded in finding a method to locate them n...
An inspiring trip to Berlin for the group of the Bremen Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology.
On February 26, 2020, the 3rd Ocean Day will allow 500 pupils to dig deep into marine science in Bremen.
On February 26, 2020, the 3rd Ocean Day will allow 500 pupils to dig deep into marine science in Bremen.
Ecological niches are a concept well known from higher animals. Apparently, bacteria act accordingly. Researchers from the Max-Planck-Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen have found that marine Polaribacter-bacteria find their ecological niche by specializing on their favorite sugar. They ...
From the shoreline to the deep sea, one group of bacteria is particularly widespread in our planet’s seabed: The so-called Woeseiales, which may be feeding on the protein remnants of dead cells. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine...
Art and Science – this alliance offers many opportunities, especially when it comes to the tiny world of single-cell organisms. The mural painting of Alexa Garin-Fernandez at the entrance to the Department of Molecular Ecology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology shows how this can...
Nitrogen cycling in shelf waters is crucial to reduce surplus nutrients, which rivers pour out into the ocean. Yet many of its aspects are poorly understood. Scientists from Bremen have now succeeded in finding answers to a longstanding mystery in a key process of the nitrogen cycle.
Mussels in the deep sea can only survive there thanks to symbiotic bacteria living inside of them. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen have now succeeded for the first time in simultaneously identifying individual bacteria in the symbiosis and measuring which...
The field campaign EUREC4A intends to answer one of climate sciences great mysteries. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Bremen support the campaign.
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved a second funding phase for the research group FOR 2406 "Proteogenomics of Marine Polysaccharide Degradation" (POMPU). Scientists from the University of Greifswald and the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology Bremen are working together in ...
Der Titel der Lesung legte bereits nahe, wohin die Reise gehen sollte: „Aufbruch in die Natur! Expeditionen als Schnittstelle von Wissenschaft und Kunst – Eine Lesung zu Fernweh und Aufbruch, Natur und Mensch am Abgrund“. Darum ging es in der szenischen Lesung der Meeresforscherin Antje Boetius ...
Scientists from Bremen discover an unusual protein playing a significant role in the Earth’s nitrogen cycle. The novel heme-containing cytochrome is involved in the anammox process, which is responsible for producing half of the dinitrogen gas in the atmosphere and important in greenhouse gas reg...
Microbes of the genus Arcobacter live in toxic and oxygen-poor areas of the ocean – this has been known for some time. Yet, how exactly do they do this? Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen have recently attempted to answer to this question. In the journal A...
A new group of symbiotic bacteria in deep-sea mussels surprises with the way they fix carbon: They use the Calvin cycle to turn carbon into tasty food. The bacteria acquired the genes for this process from neighboring symbiotic bacteria in the mussel. These results from a recent study by scientis...
Microbiologists at the Max Planck Institutes in Marburg and Bremen have discovered a new metabolic process in the ocean. Ranging from molecular structures of individual genes and detection of their global distribution, their results give insight into the pathway process and its degradation produc...
Prof. Dr. Nicole Dubilier, director of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, is awarded the medal for exceptional contributions to marine science.
Deep-sea mussels, which cooperate with symbiotic bacteria for their food, harbor a surprisingly high diversity of these bacterial “cooks”: Up to 16 different bacterial strains live in the mussel's gills, each with its own abilities and strengths. Thanks to this diversity of symbiotic bacterial pa...
On 2 October, Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and director at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, officially received the Federal Cross of Merit. At the event, Germany’s Federal President Frank-Wal...
For the first time, scientists in Bremen were able to observe bacteria forming pearl chains that protrude from the cell surface. These pearl chains serve to better absorb and store substances from the environment. The researchers now present their results in the journal Applied and Environmental ...
Am 21. und 22. September konnten kleine und große Besucher auf der Forschungsmeile 2019 ausprobieren, wie Wissenschaftler arbeiten. Wir waren dabei und haben uns sehr über das rege Interesse an unseren Zelten gefreut. Ein großes Dankeschön geht dabei an unsere Helferinnen und Helfer!
We went to the DESY in Hamburg with our host-microbe samples to do super high-resolution scanning. First steps to scan frozen and not-contrasted samples.
From 20 to 22 September is time again for the Maritime Week along the Weser Promenade Schlachte!
As in the last few years, we will introduce ourselves and our research to the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology on September 21 and 22 on the research mile, along with about another 30 resea...
Benedikts paper is published - if you like to see more about the connection of high resolution 3D scanning with MALDI-MSI have a look here...
Combining metagenomic and microscopic techniques, a new study reveals that archaea are likely an important component of the microbial community for organic matter remineralization.
The tiny organisms cling to oil droplets and perform a great feat: As a single organism, they may produce methane from oil by a process called alkane disproportionation. Previously this was only known from symbioses between bacteria and archaea. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine...
Algae blooms regularly make for pretty, swirly satellite photos of lakes and oceans. They also make the news occasionally for poisoning fish, people and other animals. What's less frequently discussed is the outsize role they play in global carbon...
Bund und norddeutsche Länder unterzeichnen Vereinbarung zum Aufbau des Verbunds deutscher Meeresforschungseinrichtungen
Enzymes are biocatalysts that are crucial for the degradation of seaweed biomass in oceans. For the first time, an international team of 19 scientists recently decoded the complete degradation pathway of the algal polysaccharide Ulvan by biocatalysts from a marine bacterium. The results of their ...
In March, 16 MarMic students from the Class of 2022 successfully defended their Master thesis.
The South Pacific Gyre is an ocean desert. However, due to its vast size the microbial inhabitants of the South Pacific Gyre contribute significantly to global biogeochemical cycles. In an unparalleled investigation, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germ...
Kentron, a bacterial symbiont of ciliates, turns cellular waste products into biomass. It is the first known sulfur-oxidizing symbiont to be entirely heterotrophic. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology now report about this unexpected bacterium that turns waste into f...
On June 15, 2019, the University of Bremen again invited all interested people from Bremen and to an OPEN CAMPUS. We were there and showed you the world of the smallest inhabitants on the university campus.
Janine, Dennis and Patric went to the Dreiswerd lab in Münster to look at new spraying methods and look at the newest super high resolution MALDI -imaging source
Trichoplax, one of the simplest animals on Earth, lives in a highly specific and intimate symbiosis with two types of bacteria. The first, Grellia, is related to parasitic bacteria that cause typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. But intriguingly, Grellia does not appear to harm Trichoplax. Th...
How microorganisms shape the dynamic evolution of our planet
From March 18, 2019, our institute is excited to welcome a new research group: Headed by Susanne Erdmann, the new group is centered on viruses infecting archaea.
The exchange of nitrogen between the atmosphere and organic matter is crucial for life on Earth because nitrogen is a major component of essential molecules such as proteins and DNA. One major route for this exchange, discovered only in the 1990s, is the anammox pathway found in certain bacteria....
Where the Earth’s plates meet, there is evidence of their motion. An expedition of the Research Vessel POLARSTERN will explore this activity in the Southern Ocean in detail. The major focus of the MARUM expedition is to examine hot vents and cold seeps. This will be the first deployment of the re...
In the sandy bottom of warm coastal waters lives Paracatenula – a small worm that has neither mouth, nor gut. Nevertheless, it lacks nothing thanks to Riegeria, the bacterium that fills most of the body of the tiny worm. Riegeria looks after its h...
With a share of up to ten percent, ethane is the second most common component of natural gas and is present in deep-seated land and marine gas deposits all around the world. Up to now, it was unclear how ethane is degraded in the absence of oxygen. A team of researchers from the Helmholtz Centre ...
Invitation to the MPI seminar
Nitric oxide (NO) is a central molecule of the global nitrogen cycle. A study by Boran Kartal from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany, and colleagues reveals that microorganisms can grow on NO at concentrations that would be lethal to all other lifeforms. Their results, whi...
Methane is not only a powerful greenhouse gas, but also a source of energy. Microorganisms therefore use it for their metabolism. They do so much more frequently and in more ways than was previously assumed, as revealed by a study now published in Nature Microbiology by researchers from the Max P...
Dual honour for researchers at the MPI Bremen: Rafael Laso-Pérez and Stefan Becker each receive the MARUM Research Award 2019 for their outstanding dissertations.
Am 13. Februar 2019 ist es soweit: An der Universität Bremen findet der zweite Bremer Ocean Day statt.
Am 13. Februar 2019 ist es soweit: An der Universität Bremen findet der zweite Bremer Ocean Day statt.
For his dissertation "Biocatalytic quantification of laminarin – a major carbohydrate polymer in the ocean" Stefan Becker receives this years' MARUM Research Award. The award is presented to young marine scientists who have written outstanding master's or doctoral theses.
Have you ever heard of the "Magnetic spiral from Greifswald"? Probably not, but most likely you have already encountered it, albeit unknowingly. The magnetic spiral inhabits the muddy bottom of ponds, rivers, lakes and oceans. It is tiny, very fascinating and full of potential. That's why it was ...
For his dissertation "A novel mechanism for the anaerobic degradation of non-methane hydrocarbons in archaea", which he completed with distinction, Rafael Laso-Pérez receives this years' MARUM Research Award.
A plea by 50 international scientists, including MPI Director Rudolf Amann, in the journal Science: Those who make their data available to other researchers without restriction must receive the appropriate recognition.
Researchers from the Centre Scientifique de Monaco (CSM), the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen and the University of Kiel have succeeded in directly measuring three key parameters necessary for skeleton formation in a live tropical coral. This way, they completely characteri...
The ammonia oxidizing archaea, or Thaumarchaeota, are amongst the most abundant marine microorganisms. Yet, we are still discovering which factors allow them to thrive in the ocean. A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen and the University of Vienna was no...
Benedikt Geier, PhD student in the Department of Symbiosis at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, was awarded this year's MSI Award for his innovative method for visualizing and investigating symbioses.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major cause of global warming. Researchers use complex computer models to calculate the global circulation of this greenhouse gas. The oceans have a major influence on climate regulation. New research now helps to calculate this influence more precisely. These new findin...
Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier überreicht am Sonntag in Erfurt den 26. Deutschen Umweltpreis der Deutschen Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU). Die mit 500.000 Euro höchstdotierte unabhängige Umweltauszeichnung Europas teilen sich 2018 die Meeresbiologin Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius (Alfred-Wegener-I...
From October 1, 2018, our institute is excited to welcome a new research group: Headed by Tristan Wagner, the new group is dedicated to better understand the life of methanogenic microorganisms.
It takes time to do a thing well, this also and specifically applies to the deep sea. In a long-term study, marine scientists from Bremen for the first time observed the colonization of a deep-sea mud volcano after its eruption. Only slowly, rich life develops around the crater. The first settler...
Invitation to the MPI seminar
Invitation to the MPI seminar
On August 29, 2018, Friedrich Widdel, our institute’s director from day one, bid farewell with a company outing and a joint party at our institute to his well-deserved retirement.
The workshop will be held at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany on August 20th – August 22nd 2018.
This annual workshop serves as a platform for exchanging results, expertise, and technological developments regarding nanoSIMS 50/50L. We invite...
Vielseitig, fachübergreifend, authentisch: Die Bremer Meeresforscherin Antje Boetius überzeugt mit der engagierten Kommunikation ihrer Forschung über die Tiefsee und Polarregionen sowie allgemeiner Fragen rund um das Wissenschaftssystem. Am 2. Juli wird ihr im Bonner Pantheon Theat...
On July 2 and 3 2018, the second "It MaTer(s) " Max Planck conference for environmental microbiology will take place at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen.
MPI researcher Dr. Arjun Chennu receives the first Hermann Neuhaus Prize of the Max Planck Society for his outstanding achievements at the interface between basic research and practical application. His work deals with the mapping of marine habitats and the analysis of biodiversity. The ceremony ...
For her outstanding scientific work on the bacterially mediated carbon turnover by marine microorganisms, MPI researcher Dr. Greta Reintjes is awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society. The ceremony will take place during the MPG Annual General Meeting on June 13, 2018 in Heidelberg.
At this year’s Annual Meeting of the Max Planck Society two researchers from our institute will be honored for their outstanding achievements.
Clara Martínez-Pérez receives this year's "MARUM Research Award for Marine Sciences".
EMBO, an organization that promotes excellence in the life sciences, announced today that Nicole Dubilier has been elected to its membership, joining a group of more than 1800 of the best researchers in Europe and around the world.
SUP05 bacteria are often found in places where there is really no basis for life for them. Researchers in Bremen have now discovered that they are even quite active there – possibly with consequences for the global nitrogen cycle. The bacteria travel with a “reserve pack”. In addition, the resear...
Invitation to the MPI seminar
In a new study published by Nature, an international team of researchers led by Uppsala University in Sweden proposes a new evolutionary origin for mitochondria – also known as the ‘powerhouses of the cell’. Mitochondria are energy-converting organelles that have played key roles in the emergence...
Studie zeigt, dass Mikroben in der Erdkruste vertilgen, was für andere unverdaulich ist
Die MPI-Wissenschaftlerin Greta Reintjes wird für ihre herausragenden wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten, die sie im Zuge ihrer Doktorarbeit ausgeführt hat, mit dem Promotionspreis der Vereinigung für Allgemeine und Angewandte Mikrobiologie ausgezeichnet.
The deep-sea scientist, leader of one of MPI’s research groups and director of AWI, receives the prestigious award for her groundbreaking contributions to biogeosciences and spearheading research on methane-based metabolisms and the marine carbon cycle.
Methane stimulates massive nitrogen loss from freshwater reservoirs in India: An international team of researchers has identified an unusual pathway that predominantly facilitates loss of reactive nitrogen from freshwater lake waters, according to the results of the collaborative study now publis...
Dr. Greta Reintjes und Tobias Vonnahme vom MPI Bremen gehören zu den diesjährigen Preisträgern der Annette-Barthelt-Stiftung
The aim of the expedition is to explore life at 8,000 m water depth and to understand the importance of the trench for regional carbon and nitrogen cycling.
Young scientists exploring the North Sea
Wind and waves, cries of seagulls, rain and occasionally a little bit of sunshine. That’s how we experience the North Sea at the beach walk. But what happens behind the beach in the sea? Children, youngsters and also adults can now find out with the onlin...
Scientists from Oldenburg, Bremen and Bremerhaven verify theory of the role of the South Pacific in natural atmospheric CO2 fluctuations.
Am 14. Februar 2018 ist es soweit: An der Universität Bremen findet der erste Bremer Ocean Day statt.
Storing carbon dioxide (CO2) deep below the seabed is one way to counteract the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. But what happens if such storage sites begin to leak and CO2 escapes through the seafloor? Answers to this question have now been provided by a study dealing with the...