300140 UE Extremophilic and marine Microorganisms (2022S)

This is a two-week practical. In the first week (Saturday May 21-Thursday May 26) participants will take samples from marine shallow waters and a solar saltern in Piran (Slovenia) and will perform initial microscopical and molecular biological and physical analyses of the samples. In the second week (May 30th to June 3), these samples will be analysed in the lab in Vienna for the presence and diversity of specific microorganisms with standard molecular biological techniques using 16S rRNA and other functional gene PCR. In particular, we will focus on ammonia oxidizing archaea and Asgard archaea. Students will become familiar with basic molecular and microscopic techniques that are routinely employed in microbial ecology (e.g. DNA preparation from environmental samples, PCR, cloning, sequence analysis, fluorescence microscopy, enrichment cultures) and will get to know the physiology and growth requirements of some extremophilic and chemolithoautotrophic microorganisms. They will also learn to design experiments and to communicate about experimental setups.