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We are proud to announce that Michelle Kulbatzki has won the Axel Semrau Bachelor Award at this year's graduation ceremony of the Water Science study program.

Michelle presented her thesis project, "Investigation of the oil degrading capabilities of algae-bacteria communities from natural oil-associated habitats" which she conducted in our group under the co-supervision of Sabina Marks.

We greatly appreciate Michelles exceptional work and dedication during her thesis and we are delighted to see her achievements recognized. We wish Michelle all the best for her future endeavors! We also congratulate all other graduates and award winners!

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Lisa is pleased to be a guest researcher at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland (UK). During her four-month stay, she is collaborating with Professor Tony Gutierrez and his research group at the School of Engineering & Physical Sciences. Our colaboration focuses on the interactions between algae and bacteria in oil degradation. Lisa was warmly welcomed by the group and looks forward to the coming months of collaboration. A special thanks to Miriam for her kind introduction and support. We would like to acknowledge the UDE Postdoc Seed Funding for supporting this valuable experience.

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We are happy to announce that Sabina Marks from the Faculty of Biology and Lisa received recognition at the "Forum Junge Spitzenforscher 2024" (Forum Young Top Researchers) competition for their research project titled "Nature's Oil Warriors."

We were invited to the finals of the competition themed "Resource-Efficient Circular Economy." Our presentation on our research project secured us the fourth position, accompanied by a prize of €2000. The competition was hosted by TU concept GmbH and TU Dortmund, with support from the Industrial Research Foundation, where a panel of five experts decided the awards. We want to thank the whole organization team and the jury for their thorough evaluation. Well done to all teams for their efforts and achievements!"

In our research, we explore the microbial and ecological processes in natural oil leaks and films in water bodies and soil. Using samples collected from natural oil leaks in Germany, we investigate the composition of algae and bacterial communities adapted to oil, examining their roles and rates in oil degradation. Our preliminary findings indicate that algae-bacteria consortia isolated from natural oil leaks can support and accelerate the degradation of human-made oil contaminations.

The study "Imprints of ecological processes in the taxonomic core community: an analysis of naturally replicated microbial communities enclosed in oil", lead by Verena explores how microbial communities in similar environments, namely in 193 tiny water droplets from the Pitch Lake in Trinidad and Tobago, form core communities. These water dropet communities revealed highly variable relative abundances along with a large proportional core community building 68 ± 20 % of the total community.

A dispersal-drift null model forecasted a negative relationship between the proportional core community and compositional variability across dispersal probabilities, contradicting the observed data. This implies that selection predominantly influences the composition of water droplet communities in the Pitch Lake.

Sebastians first paper on "Assessing anaerobic microbial degradation rates of crude light oil with reverse stable isotope labelling (RSIL) and community analysis" was acceped to be published in Front. Microbiomes Sec. Environmental Microbiomes in the Research Topic Ecology, Evolution, and Biodiversity of Microbiomes and Viromes From Extreme Environments.

Our research underscores the effectiveness of the, in the Meckenstock lab developed method, reverse stable isotope labeling (RSIL) in quantifying the breakdown of complex organic substrates (crude oil) occurring at minute rates.

Dr. Stefan Dyksma from Leibniz Institute - DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH presented his work in our first UMB Seminar in 2024.

We heard an interesting talk about about the diversity on a global scale and deduced ecophysiology of microorganisms possessing the capability for dissimilatory sulfate/sulfite reduction. He also presented his recent study about "Oxygen respiration and polysaccharide degradation by a sulfate-reducing acidobacterium" showing that sulfate reduction and oxygen respiration can cooccur in one organism, organic polymers can be utilized during sulfate reduction, and the anaerobic mineralization of organic matter may not always involve multiple steps.

We are pleased to announce that the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie has awarded us a grant for material costs for the project "Extraction and analysis of alkanes and (poly)aromatic hydrocarbon compounds from algae".

Nadia, Rainer and Lisa presented current research from the Aquatic Microbiology group at the 2nd Joint Symposium of the International Societies for Environmental Biogeochemistry & Subsurface Microbiology 2023 in Banff, Alberta, Canada.

- "Confirming the Mechanism of Anaerobic Phenanthrene Degradation: A Validation Study" presented by Nadia

- "Chemo-organo-autotrophic degradation of aromatic hydrocarbons indicates a new type of bacterial metabolism" presented by Rainer

- "Microbial activities along a 20 million-year-old pristine oil reservoir" presened by Lisa

We visited the Deutsche Erdölmuseum in Wietze. The museum provides a fascinating journey through the evolution of the oil industry and history of Lower Saxony in Germany.

The museum is definitely worth a visit for the whole family. You will learn, among other things, what oil is, how much oil is in everyday products, and how oil is produced today and how it was produced in the past.

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We have are happy to announce that we have been awarded by the UDE Postdoc Seed Funding for our project on "Microbial processes in natural oil leaks".

Our research project aims to investigate the microbial ecological processes occurring in natural oil leaks and films on water bodies, as well as the transition zone between two different ecosystems/habitats (oil/water).

“All sorts of things can happen when you’re open to new ideas and playing around with things.”

                      ~ Stephanie Kwolek ~
Chemist (1923-2014), developed Kevlar 1964