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.

24.04.2018
 

"Unifying the global phylogeny and environmental distribution of ammonia-oxidising archaea based on amoA genes"

24.04.2018
 

"Cultivation and Characterization of an Extremely Thermophilic Ammonia Oxidizing Archaeon"

19.04.2018
 

News article from the austrian newspaper der Standard about our publication on the thermophilic thaumarchaeon Candidatus Nitrosocaldus cavascurensis.

19.04.2018
 

"In Vivo Studies of Strong and Regulatable Promoters in Sulfolobus solfataricus"

18.04.2018
 

Congratulations to Tobias Viehböck for winning the Best Poster Award at ISMSM-5!

17.04.2018
 

"Linking the pylogeny of Thaumarchaea with their environmental and functional diversity"

Guest Lectures

07.04.2017
 

"Importance of cell wall surveillance systems in plant responses to heavy metals and excess trade elements"

Fr, 7 April May 2017, 11a.m., Lecture...

31.03.2017
 

"Revealing the metabolism and rates of active chemoautotrophic microbial communities linking sulfur, nitrogen, and carbon cycles at deep-sea...

17.03.2017
 

“Living in a novel world: The biogeography and macroecology of biological invasions”

 

Fr, 17 March 2017, 11 a.m., Lecture Hall II, UZA 1