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- It is the goal of the course to provide an overview of the many facets of microbial ecology and diversity by
- investigating how microbial diversity emerged as the evolutionary product of mutation and selection
- defining the major prokaryotic inventions, those which remained and those which might have disappeared
- creating awareness of the impressive diversity in metabolic activities of microbes
- initiating contacts between scientific fields which are not usually combined
- encouraging a rapprochement between environmental microbiology, microbial ecology and geochemistry
- bringing together aspects of environmental and, in a few cases, medical and health oriented microbiology
- illustrating how microbes rule the world by showing how microbes interact to do their job optimally
- Understanding microbiology in general will open new insights into the history of life on earth and possibly suggest approaches to discovering life on other planets. A better understanding of microbes also promises to provide an array of new products and processes as well as a better awareness of the microbial biosphere, which is the earth's life support system.
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- This course is based on the following basic themes which will be addressed in lectures, colloquia and laboratory exercises. We will illustrate the unique features that determine the ecophysiological potential of microbial communities with an ecosystem perspective in mind. "Interactions" will be the overarching theme of the course, interactions between microbes, but also between microbes and the environments which they inhabit and between microbes and their animal and plant hosts.
- Why prokaryotes are metabolically diverse
- Why do prokaryotes contain the greatest diversity of all living organisms with regard to types of energy metabolisms, catabolic pathways, metabolites and symbiotic relationships; but why do they express a rather low diversity of known biosynthetic processes and shapes ?
- Why prokaryotes evolved as specialists
- Although microbes exist under all kinds of environmental conditions and express broad adaptations to physical and chemical extremes, why did evolution not slowly lead to a single super microbe that possesses all the features necessary to exist everywhere ?
- Why prokaryotes inhabit every ecosystem
- What are the necessary physical and chemical conditions that allow for the existence and the broad natural distribution of microbes and what are the features that allow microbes to colonize every livable space on earth ?
- How prokaryotes interact with the environment
- How do prokaryotes sense environmental signals and respond to them in diverse habitats and by what means do they "communicate" with each other, their hosts and the environment ?
- How prokaryotes can be studied with molecular methods
- How are the modern tools applied for phenotypic and genotypic identification of microbial species and how can they be used for diversity analyses and to evaluate the physiological potential of individual populations and its expression in whole communities ?
- How prokaryotes contribute to the evolution of life on earth and possibly on other planets
- How can the evolution of metabolic traits be linked to the role microbes play as biogeochemical agents in maintaining global physiology and climate as well to their potential as pathogens ?
- Why prokaryotes offer excellent model systems for biological studies
- What kind of ecological concepts and generally valid biological principles can be derived from studying the prokaryotic world ?
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- The course offers
- Lectures
- Colloquia
- Minisymposium workshops
- Research-type lab exercises in groups
- Problem solving sessions
- Modelling exercises on the computer
- Field trips
- The course will be optimized to student's needs, your input is, therefore, important. We ask you to select 10 themes out of the ones listed under "Design your own Course" which are of interest to you and to submit your selection on the prepared inscription form. We will then make the final program from the most frequently chosen priorities.
- We presently offer 36 lecture themes grouped into 8 parts
Evolution to present day microbial diversity
Microbial ecosystems & ecosystem determinants
Energetics determines microbial lifestyles
Microbial involvement in geochemical cycling
Primary microbial production
Microbial interactions
Applied microbial ecology
Deriving concepts from microbial ecology and diversity
- The lectures emphasize aquatic and terrestrial environments, but do not exclude other interesting microbial ecosystems available at various sites world-wide. Some lectures will illustrate the importance of microbes as living environmental agents and as partners in microbe-animal or microbe-plant interactions, others will emphazise the roles microbes play in global geochemical cycles, and again others are aimed at illustrating basic ecological principles.