Dr. Sarahi Garcia (Associate professor)

My research interest lie on microbial interactions in aquatic environments and the effect of these interactions on carbon cycles. I am interested in auxotrophies, metabolic complementarities, division of labor, metabolic handoffs, microbial market and any kind of microbial cooperation.

Dr. Julia Nuy (Postdoc)

I am postdoc at Stockholm University in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Plant sciences (DEEP) and are part of the working group led by Sarahi Garcia. I finished my Ph.D. in May 2020 in course of which I investigated the effects of the environment on microeukaryotic and bacterial freshwater communities using ‘omics’ approaches. In my current research, I explore microbial cooperation among bacteria. Here, I focus on the analysis of metabolic potentials of bacterial communities and the detection of auxotrophies that are source of metabolic interdependencies in a community. The analyses are based on the screening of metagenomic data from complex natural communities and model communities with a lower degree of complexity. This research contributes to resolve the impact of the microbial market on nutrient cycles and community dynamics in diverse ecosystems.

Keywords: auxotrophies, omics, bacteria, microbial cooperation, metabolic handoffs

Themes: 2-4

Alejandro Rodriguez-Gijon

As a PhD student at Stockholm University and SciLifeLab, I investigate how free-living aquatic bacteria establish interspecies interactions and the effect they might have on the development of auxotrophies across phylogeny, using model communities and bioinformatic analysis. I´m deeply interested in genome streamlining as driver of microbial evolution and how ecological factors can influence this phenomenon.

Keywords: microbial interactions, genome streamlining, auxotrophies, model communities. 

Theme: Number 2, Functional Diversity and Number 3, Microbial interactions and Evolution.