Keynote (01.10.2024 09:30 - 10:30)
Thanks to the support of the University of Bayreuth Graduate School and German Association of General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM), we are happy to have Emil Ruff as our key note speaker at this year's Geobiology ECR symposium.
S. Emil Ruff, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, USA
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Emil Ruff is a microbial ecologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, USA. His research focuses on microbial metabolisms and interactions that impact the sulfur, carbon, and oxygen cycle in aquatic ecosystems. He is particularly interested in mutualistic interactions between microbes that lead to novel community functions, often enabling these microbes to conquer new habitats. Emil mainly studies ecosystems with reduced complexity, such as natural or laboratory enrichment cultures, microbial blooms, or extreme habitats. Emil is a Kavli Fellow (2024) and has received an Early Career Grant from the Human Frontiers Science Program (2023), and a Simons Foundation Early Career Investigator in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution Award (2021), and is a member of the AMI Ocean Sustainability Advisory Group. |
Talk title: Is anoxia a hoax? Evidence for the widespread occurrence and cycling of “dark oxygen” in apparently anoxic environments
Emil will talk about the microbial production of molecular oxygen (O2) in the absence of light and its relevance in apparently anoxic environments. He and his collaborators found evidence of the in-situ production and consumption of O2 in diverse ecosystems across large temporal and spatial scales. This “dark oxygen” could originate from the microbial dismutation of nitric oxide and/or chlorite, microbial processes that were so far not deemed to be important on a global scale. The discovery challenges our current understanding of the evolution, ecology, and biogeochemistry of the biogeosphere, suggesting aerobic niches in many environments that were thought to be anoxic.