WP 3 - Microbial communities and contamination

Objectives

The objectives are to determine spatial and temporal changes in sea-water bacterial and archaeal community structure and the presence of bacterial phages in Potter Cove. Furthermore Work Package 6 aims to determine the structure of bacterial and archaeal communities in soils and sediments from Potter Cove, including sites with fuel spills and to identify the response to natural and anthropogenic stress in sentinel marine macrofauna (e.g. L. elliptica) on cellular and transcriptome level (collaboration with WP4).

About the WP Leader – Walter Mac Cormack

WP 3 is led by Prof. Dr. Walter Mac Cormack from the Instituto Antártico Argentina.

Prof W. P. Mac Cormack, is Biologist and member of the scientific staff of the Instituto Antártico Argentino (IAA) since 1986. He has a Doctoral Degree in Biotechnology from the University of Buenos Aires and is professor in the same university. At the present days he is the leader of the Environmental Microbiology and Ecophysiology of the IAA. He has focused his work on Antarctic Microbiology, mainly in soil bacterial communities and their changes under hydrocarbon contamination. Also the structure and dynamics of the marine bacterial and archaeal communities, bioprospection of Antarctic microorganisms with biotechnological potential as well as mycological and viral Antarctic communities are targets of his research group. Several of these lines of research are being carried out under national and international agreements (AWI, University of Groningen, Universitat Rovira et Virgili, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, CENPAT-CONICET, PROIMI-CONICET among others). His research is supported by national and international funds.