Welcome to Archaea Biology and Ecogenomics

Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology

We belong to the Faculty of Life Sciences of the University of Vienna. On 1 January 2022 Archaea Biology, Molecular Systems Biology, Limnology and Bio-Oceanography and Marine Biology merged to the Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology.

Archaea arose together with Bacteria as the first organisms on this planet about 3.5 billion years ago. They form a separate domain of life beside bacteria and eukaryotes and inhabit virtually all environments on earth, including the most extreme environments that can sustain life.
Our unit studies the biology of archaea as well as bacterial symbioses with a focus on ecological, physiological and evolutionary aspects to shed light on the diversity and fundamental distinctions between these two prokaryotic groups.

In particular we are interested in:

- the ecological distribution of archaea from terrestrial, aquatic and hot environments

- the phylogeny of archaea

- the metabolism and genomes of ammonia oxidizing thaumarchaeota

- virus-defense (CRISPR-) systems of hyperthermophilic archaea

- archaea Biotechnology

- bacterium-nematode symbioses

We thus attempt to improve the understanding of the role of microorganisms, in particular of archaea, in global biogeochemical cycles and in early evolution.

30.03.2022
 

"Investigating the biotechnological potential of archaea and their surface layer proteins"

30.03.2022
 

"Chromosome Configuration of Oral Cavity Symbionts"

29.03.2022
 

"Exploring the Physiology of the Ammonia Oxidizing Archaeaon Nitrosospheara viennensis"

18.03.2022
 

"Reaching out to early-career astrobiologists: AbGradE's actions and perspectives"

01.03.2022
 

"Microbial biotransformations in biogeochemical cycles"

28.02.2022
 

"Scale-Up of Dark Fermentative Biohydrogen Production by Artificial Microbial Co-Cultures"

Guest Lectures

25.04.2023
 

"Origins of cell diversity in self-organizing multicellular tissues"

18.04.2023
 

"Functional organization of bacterial chromosomes"

28.03.2023
 

"Sensory coding to memory formation: a functional and evolutionary perspective"