Research Interests

The purpose of this project will be to study the microbial interactions amongst a simplified model community (heterotrophic bacteria of a river water) and the way the network builds itself according to the (a)biotic parameters of the environment. In order to do that, we will set an experimental device allowing us to incubate 20 bacterial strains in an artificial river water. The thesis project will run through three stages: (i) studying the way the community builds itself without disturbances and determine, using mathematical tools, the topology of the interactions network; (ii) validating the interactions predicted before by creating co-cultures between strain pairs or by eliminating from the environment the most connected strains; (iii) observing the way the community reacts to environmental disturbances, applied in a punctual and random way. In the end of the project, we hope being able to predict the behavior of this community according to the environmental conditions.

Thesis: “Study of microbial interaction networks among heterotrophic bacteria from river waters”

Supervisor: Isabelle George     Co-supervisor: Karoline Faust (KULeuven)