High-Andean Microbial Ecosystems: From Lakes to photoreceptors

Microbiology Seminar Series

  • Date: Aug 23, 2021
  • Time: 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Dr. Virginia Helena Albarracín
  • Centro Integral de Microscopía Electrónica, Yerba Buena, Argentina
  • Location: Zoom
  • Host: Prof. Dr. Lars-Oliver Essen (FB Chemie - Biochemie, Universität Marburg)
  • Contact: essenl@staff.uni-marburg.de

High-altitude ecosystems (HAE; 3500-6000m asl) are distributed across Central Andean, South America in which poly-extremophilic microbes thrive under extreme environmental conditions. In particular, total solar irradiation and the UV incidence is the highest on Earth. Nonetheless, the microbial communities showed great biodiversity in terms of species but also in the way they counteract the extreme conditions, forming cooperative associations such as biofilms, microbial mats and microbialites, including modern stromatolites. In this talk, I will present the biodiversity of these microbial ecosystems and the molecular basis of their adaptive strategies, especially the UV-resistome and the photoreceptors of the crytochromes/photolyase family.

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