Research Group: Microbial Interactions

Microbial inoculants for plant growth promotion: we investigate how PGPRs colonize the plant rhizosphere, how they interact with native microbial communities, and how they change plant physiology and growth.  

Isolation of novel bacteria from soil and rhizosphere: We are working on the design of “informed” cultivation approaches where predictions from metagenomes are used to increase the chances of capturing so far uncultivated bacteria belonging to abundant but so-far overlooked taxa.

Bacteria associated with fungal hyphae: We work to clarify the factors shaping bacterial communities associated with hyphae of phosphate-solubilizing fungi (biofertilizers) under realistic soil conditions.

Microbiomes in deep soil layers and in rhizosphere of deep-rooted crops: we aim to unravel the microbial life styles in hot spot i.e. deep roots and tectonic fractures in subsurface soil.

Environmental stressors significant for fate and persistence of microbial inoculants in soil.  We aim to provide novel knowledge on the significance of environmental stressors as bottlenecks for performance of plant growth promoting bacteria under realistic soil conditions.

Phage-bacterial interactions: We uncover how bacteria sense and respond to stress in their environment, including bacteriophage infection, and we transform this knowledge into new ways of targeting pathogenic bacteria, for more potent use of phages for biotechnology and therapy applications.

• Bac4Crop: Developing a platform for designing microbial consortia of plant beneficial bacteria for climate resilient maize production
• Deep Frontier: Investigating microbial communities in deep rooted crops
• INTERACT: Decoding the rhizobiome interactome for improved crop recilience in wheat
• Protective Microbiomes on Plant Pathogenic Nematodes: Unraveling the genetic functional potential of nematode microbiomes for protection of the nematodes against antagonists
• Targeting bacterial defenses for effective therapies: Engineering bacteriophages to circumvent bacterial defenses.