The taste of salt

The Baltic Sea is characterized by its distinct horizontal and vertical pelagic salinity gradient, with the unique feature that 62 % of its surface zone is represented by brackish conditions (5-8 salinity). Observations concerning the diversity of pelagic microorganisms in the Baltic Sea demonstrated the presence of marine as well as freshwater taxa, but no coherent view exists on the area of a shift between marine and freshwater microorganisms, or the composition of potential brackish water microbial assemblages.

Phylogenetic markers are investigated for transects covering the horizontal and vertical salinity gradient of the whole Baltic Sea. The bacterial diversity and abundance will be studied applying 16S rRNA/rRNA gene Tag pyrosequencing analyses, resulting in the first biogeographical as well as microbial richness mapping of the Baltic Sea on a high resolution, three-dimensional basis.

ATKiM project (coordinator) 2011-2014
Degradability of artic, terrigenous carbon compounds in the Sea (ATKiM)

Klier J., Dellwig O., Leipe T., Jürgens K., and D.P.R. Herlemann 2018. Benthic bacterial community composition in the oligohaline-marine transition of surface sediments in the Baltic Sea based on rRNA analysis. Front. Microbiol. 2018;9:236.

Wylezich C., Herlemann D.P.R., Jürgens K. 2018. Improved 18S rDNA amplification protocol for assessing protist diversity in oxygen-deficient marine systems. Aquat. Microb. Ecol. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/ame01864)

Herlemann D.P.R., Manecki M., Dittmar T., and K. Jürgens. 2017. Differential responses of marine, mesohaline, and oligohaline bacterial communities to the addition of terrigenous carbon. Environ. Microb.:19, 8, 3098–3117

Seidel M., Manecki M., Herlemann D.P.R., Deutsch B., Schulz-Bull D., Jürgens K. and T. Dittmar. 2017. Composition and transformation of dissolved organic matter in the Baltic Sea. Front. Earth Sci. 5:31. doi: 10.3389/feart.2017.00031

Urubschurov V., Büsing K., Freyer G., Herlemann D.P.R., Souffrant W.B. , and Zeyner A. New insights into the role of the porcine intestinal yeast, Kazachstania slooffiae, in intestinal environment of weaned piglets. FEMS Microbiology Ecology. 2017. Feb 1;93(2):fiw245.

Herlemann D.P.R., Lundin D., Andersson A., Labrenz M., and K Jürgens. 2016 Phylogenetic signals of salinity and season in bacterial community composition across the salinity gradient of the Baltic Sea. Front. Microbiol. 7:1883. 

Numberger D., Dehnhardt G., Herlemann D.P.R., Jürgens K., and Schulz-Vogt H.N. 2016. Comparative analysis of the fecal bacterial community of five harbor seals Phoca vitulina. MicrobiologyOpen: doi: 10.1002/mbo3.369 

Schäffler H., Herlemann D.P.R., Alberts C., Kaschitzki A., Bodammer P., Bannert K., Köller T., Warnke P., Kreikemeyer B., and  G. Lamprecht. 2016 Mucosa-attached bacterial community in Crohn’s Disease coheres with the Clinical Disease Activity Index. Environ Microb Rep.: 8; 5 614–621

Otto S., Erdmann S., Streibel T., Herlemann D.P.R., Schulz-Bull D. Zimmermann R. 2016 Pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with electron-ionization and resonance-enhanced-multi-photon-ionization for the characterization of terrestrial dissolved organic matter in the Baltic Sea. Anal. Methods, 8, 2592-2603

Publications before 2016

• since 2009 Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research, Warnemünde; Postdoc
• 2006 –2009 Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology Marburg, Germany.
  Doctor of natural science (Ph.D.)
• 2005 External diploma thesis at the
  Helmholtz Centre for Environmental research (UFZ), Leipzig.
• 2003 Semester abroad (ERASMUS) at the University of Klaipeda, Lithuania
• 2000- 2005 Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University Greifswald, Diplom