Viral (and host) microdiversity response to multiple stressors in freshwater ecosystems (A22*)

• Subject Area: Microbial Ecology and Applied Microbiology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 426547801

In A22 we will use metagenomics to investigate how the microdiversity of bacteria and viruses responds to ecosystem degradation under the influence of moderate to severe stressors (flow velocity, salt, temperature and drought), and how it recovers after release from stressors. We will rely on data from highly parallelised ExStreamSIGMA experiments (for all four stressor types, in different combinations), or from field sites (for drought). The microdiversity will be evaluated based both on single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and on structural variants (SVs).

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1439: Multilevel response to stressor increase and release in stream ecosystems (RESIST)
• Applicant Institution: Universität Duisburg-Essen
• Project Head: Cristina Moraru, Ph.D.