People
Mar Benavides
Chargée de Recherche IRD, Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography.
My research is devoted to understanding the interactions between marine microbes and their physical, chemical and biological environment through a multi-spatiotemporal scale lens. My underlying philosophy is that processes that take place at small scales (molecule or cell level) can have impact at larger -regional or even global- scales. In the same manner, larger scale processes such as ocean circulation can alter the interactions between microbes and their environment affecting their distribution and activity. From the nanoscale to the global scale, unveiling the interactions between the marine environment and its microbes requires an interdisciplinary approach. I combine nanotechnology, molecular biology, biogeochemistry and modeling to bridge the spatiotemporal scales of microbial processes in the ocean.
Postdocs
Elena Cerdán
Aix-Marseille Université
Project: Ecogenomics of particle-attached non-cyanobacterial diazotrophs
elena.cerdan@mio.osupytheas.fr
Cora Hörstmann
Aix-Marseille Université
Project: Fine scale dynamics of diazotrophs in the ocean
Christian Furbo Reeder
Aix-Marseille Université
Project: Impact of particle microbial colonization on nitrogen cycling in the ocean
PhD students
Arthur Coët
Aix-Marseille Université, co-supervised by Pierre Ronceray (CINaM)
Thesis: Dynamics and architecture of diazotroph particle colonization
Subhadeep Chowdhury
Aix-Marseille Université, co-supervised by Sophie Bonnet (MIO)
Thesis: Dinitrogen Fixation in the Indian Ocean: an interbasin and seasonal comparison
My research focuses on the Dinitrogen Fixation in the Indian Ocean in order to decipher the distribution and diversity of diazotrophs across basins and seasons. Also, I am trying to figure out how biogeochemical and environmental factors affect diazotrophs diversity and their N2 fixation activity in this mysterious ocean basin. In addition, I am interested to trace the alternative nitrogenases in Ocean and their potential to fixing N2.
Alba Filella
Aix-Marseille Université, co-supervised by France Van Wambeke (MIO)
Thesis: Diazotroph interactions with organic matter under climate change
I am investigating marine diazotrophs responses to future ocean conditions. Particularly I am interested in resolving which role diazotrophs play in organic matter cycling, potentially acting as consumers, transformers but also considering themselves as an organic matter source to higher trophic levels. Thus, the overall aim is to understand and anticipate diazotrophs' osmotrophic capability and fate across the food web in a changing environments.
Engineers
Cécile Carpaneto
AMU Ingénieur d'Études
Olivier Grosso
CNRS Engineer Mass spectrometry
Master students
Rémi Legrand
Aix-Marseille Université, Master in Computational and Mathematical Biology
Project: Improving nifH gene annotation
Visiting students
Jana Härri is a Master student at Nicolas Gruber's lab (ETH-Zürich, Switzerland). She will be visiting us in April 2022 to analyze qPCR diazotroph samples from the North Atlantic Ocean
Lisa von Friesen is a PhD student at Lasse's Riemann's lab (Unversity of Copenhaguen, Denmark). She will be visiting us in October to analyze IRMS and MIMS samples from an Arctic Ocean cruise
Christian Furbo Reeder from the SDU (Germany) is visiting us in December 2021 to learn diazotroph culturing techniques and work of nifD gene annotation together with Subhadeep Chowdhury in the frame of the projects DINDE/IDEFIX
Jacqueline Umbricht and Angelina Klett from the Leibniz-Baltic Sea Research Institute (Germany) are visiting us in summer 2021 to work on the NOTION project experiments
Alumni
Isabel Baños , PhD student
Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, co-supervised with Javier Arístegui (ULPGC) and Federico Baltar (UWien)
Thesis: The effect of climate change stressors on marine plankton respiration
Arthur Coët, Master student
Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
Project: Particles as niches for non-cyanobacterial diazotrophs
Cinthya Vieira, Master student
Universidad Autónoma de México
Project: Assessing cyanobacterial diazotroph mixotrophy: global distribution of DOM uptake genes
Jean-Charles Cancel, Postdoc
Aix-Marseille Université
Project: Near real-time quantification of diazotrophs through nanobody immunolabeling
Emile Seris, Biotech Engineer
Sup'Biotech Paris
Project: Growth of diazotrophic cyanobacteria under climate change scenarios
Alana Boyer, Biotech Engineer
Polytech Aix-Marseille Université
Project: Exploring microbes in marine particles: function, traits and diversity associated
Clara Ducrocq, L3 Biology
Université de Versailles
Project: Marine microbial respiration under climate change
Louis Conradt, Master student
Master Recherche d'Océanographie spécialité Océanographie physique et biogéochimique, Aix-Marseille Université
Project: Fine scale variability of nitrogen fixation in the western tropical South Pacific Ocean
Louise Miech, Biotech Engineer
Sup'Biotech Paris
Project: Role of diazotrophs in coral nitrogen nutrition
Emilie Poletti, Master student
Master Recherche d’Océanographie spécialité Biologie Écologie Marine, Aix-Marseille Université
Project: Cyanobacterial diazotrophs under pressure