What is the impact of land use and climate change on soil viromes and viral lifestyles, and how virome composition and viral lifestyles connect with nutrient cycling?

Although soils have been extensively studied for their prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities and ecology, research on viral ecology lags behind. Soils harbor a large number of viruses, and how they are connected through virus-host interactions in soil microbial communities with biogeochemical cycles in soil ecosystems remains unclear. At UFZ, I work in the project LuCliVir, an iDiv Flexpool project. We utilize the Global Change Experimental Facility (GCEF) from UFZ, which allows us to determine whether combined changes in land use, nutrient availability, and climate affect viral diversity and virus-host interactions in soils and how viruses shape the genetic landscape and associate with nutrient cycling in soils. Using my expertise in ecological theory and microbial bioinformatics, I aim to elucidate the role of soil viruses in nutrient cycling.

To this end, my research focuses on:
- How different land use intensities shape viral communities and their diversity in soils.
- Incorporating lifecycle history strategies (e.g., generalist/specialist dichotomies) in viruses and their hosts to understand how these traits associate with soil health.
-Connection of auxiliary viral genes carried by viruses with shifts in soil carbon and nitrogen concentrations.

Aside from the main work at UFZ/iDiv, I am also interested in:
a) how microbes promote plant health under stress and how they interact in the rhizosphere?
b) why should it matter if a microbe is a generalist, a predator, or an r-strategist

Microbes are crucial for plant and soil health, yet our understanding of their role in ecosystem functions, such as maintaining soil fertility, shaping crop resilience, and recycling nutrients, remains limited to the taxonomy and occasionally to their functional potential. In addition, most of the studies focus on certain microbial groups such as bacteria and fungi. Often, microbes are divided into generalized dichotomies that provide further understanding of their role in the ecosystems (e.g., prey/predator, generalist/specialist, K-/r-strategists). 

An additional research goal is to understand the role of microbial interactions and lifecycle histories in ecosystem functions. I have incorporated in my research portfolio different approaches such as field sampling campaigns, small lab experiments, advanced data analysis and microbial bioinformatics, and statistical modeling to understand how certain viruses and microbial lifecycle history traits shape soil and plant health.

My additional research interests include:

- community assembly of plant-
dwelling and soil-dwelling microbes under different land use intensity or crop management
- How different land use intensities shape viral communities in soils
- Incorporating lifecycle history strategies (e.g., generalist/specialist dichotomies) to understand how these traits define how microbial communities shape soil and plant health 
- The role of microbes in mitigating drought effects on crops

In addition, I collaborate on:
-comparative genomics of known plant-pathogens
-analysis of datasets for the occurrence of antibiotic resistance under different waste/wastewater managements
-analysis of soil metagenomes from Sub-Saharan Africa