Sabine Filker

Biography

2014 Ph. D., University of Kaiserslautern Thesis: "Uncovering novel diversity and ecological patterns of protistan plankton in hypersaline environments" 2011 Diploma, University of Kaiserslautern Thesis: "Environmental metatranscriptome analysis of a hypersaline anoxic deep-sea basin (Urania, Mediterranean)"

Research Interest

ince my diploma thesis I am highly interested in microbial eukaryotic life in (poly)extreme environments. Against this background my focus is on both structural and functional aspects of extremophilic life. I, therefore, investigate the biodiversity of protistan plankton in hypersaline, anoxic marine environments (Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Basins, DHABs, mediterranean sea) and along salt gradients in solar salterns around the world (e. g. Faro, Portugal; Camargue, France; Esporles, Spain). The DHABs displaying large gradients in their ionic composition, and the solar salterns exhibiting salt gradients ranging from brackish to hypersaline conditions, pose major challenges to the microbes inhabiting the respective environments, as they have to cope with changes in ion concentrations and osmotic pressure. In the course of this, I also try to reveal the metabolic responses of the microbial eukaryotes using new molecular, as well as new bioinformatic approaches.