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.

15.12.2017
 

"S, C and N Metabolism in Chemosynthetic Nematode Symbioses"

 

Fr, 15 December 2017

19.10.2017
 

Between scientific breakthroughs and societal challenges

 

19 & 20 October 2017, Billrothhaus, Frankgasse 8, 1090 Vienna

04.10.2017
 

Registration open now!

 

We cordially invite you to join us for this blocked webinar in which we will discuss key topics in microbial...

01.10.2017
 

"Archaea as novel tumor homing therapeutics"

01.10.2017
 

"Archaea as novel tumor homing therapeutics"

 

Christa Schleper and Manfred Ogris received funding for the Establishment of an interdisciplinary...

30.09.2017
 

This year's practical course "Extremophilic and thiotrophic Microorganisms from Volcanic Environments" took us to amazing sites where we climbed...