Evolutionary metagenomics

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

Microdiversity in soil bacteriophages (PhD student Thomas de Bruijn, with Hilje Doekes).

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 (PhD student Laura Patiño Medina, 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 Nikolaos Vakirlis, Dick de Ridder, and Rens Holmer).

Evolution of auxiliary metabolic genes in phages and in their bacterial homologs (visiting PhD student Nina Bäuerle, in collaboration with Nicole Frankenberg-Dinkel).

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)