Evolutionary metagenomics

Inference of microbial evolutionary processes from genetic heterogeneity present in metagenomes.

Virus discovery and evolution

Detection of viruses in plant and insect sequencing and estimation of their diversity and evolution.

Viruses <

Virus diversity and genome evolution in natural plant ecosystems (PhD student Dimitris Karapliafis, with Mark Zwart)

Virus discovery in insect genome sequencing (with Astrid Bryon)

Microbial and phage pangenomes

Contribution of different evolutionary processes that shape pangenomes of bacteria and phages

Pangenomes <

Models for pangenome evolution (with Franz Baumdicker)

Evolutionary origins of lineage-specific genes in prokaryotes (PhD student Chen Chen, collaborations with Dick de Ridder and with Nikolaos Vakirlis)

Evolution of auxiliary metabolic genes in phages and in their bacterial homologs

Microbial communities

Communities <

Synthetic microbial communities for mitigating ammonia and greenhouse gases generated by fecal microbiota (PhD student Jun Liu)

Deciphering the role of the soil microbiome in intercropping (PhD student Joliese Teunissen, with Stefan Geisen)

Viral communities in fermented milk products (with Sijmen Schoustra and Anna Alekseeva)

Additional ongoing projects

The casposon of Methanosarcina mazei Gö1 - function and evolution (with Ruth Schmitz-Streit, Finn Ole Petersen, project in priority programme Much more than defense: The many faces and facets of CRISPR-Cas)