Georg Steinert

marine ecology and systematics

Microblog - updated sporadically

• 05.23.2018 - Our BluePharmTrain chapter in Grand Challenges in Marine Biotechnology is online now. It's a nice summary of everyones work involved in this project.

• 03.22.2018 - I started to organize an omics-related workshop and I am super excited. The homepage and registration sites are now online.

• 02.13.2018 - We published a new sponge paper: 'Coexistence of poribacterial phylotypes among geographically widespread and phylogenetically divergent sponge hosts' in Environmental Microbiology Reports.

• 08.31.2017 - End of August my time as Post-Doc in the BluePharmTrain project ended. It was great working with be part of this project and also to Detmer and his students in his lab in Wageningen. I will miss it. Now, I'm back in Oldenburg-Wilhelmshaven at the ICBM in Peter's lab with more sponge-associated microbes. This time from the deep-sea around New Zealand.

• 08.16.2017 - We published a new sponge paper: 'The sponge microbiome project' in GigaScience.

• 06.25.2017 - My second Galway visit this month and year! What a coincidence. This time it was the at the 10th World Sponge Conference, my second world sponge conference after the one in Australia. It was great to meet so many good friends and I am looking forward to meet everyone again 2021 in Bali.

• 06.07.2017 - My first Galway visit this month and year! Great town and interesting meeting - 'Workshop on Sustainability in Marine Biodiscovery' at NUI Galway, Ireland

• 05.31.2017 - We published a new sponge paper: 'Host-specific assembly of sponge-associated prokaryotes at high taxonomic ranks' in Scientific Reports.

• 05.08.2017 - We published a new sponge paper: 'Predicting the HMA-LMA dichotomy in marine sponges by machine learning' in Frontiers in Microbiology.

• 03.29.2017 - We just had our last BluePharmTrain meeting. This time in Blanes, where I collected sponge samples last year. I still have some months left in the project, but this was probably the last time where we all met at the same place. As always a super special thank you to Carla for everything.

• 07.18.2016 - Check out my Sponge Sampling in Spain 2016' page. I spent two weeks in Blanes at the CEAB institute to collect sponges and sponge larvae. Many thanks to Carla Huete-Stauffer who made this possible and María Uriz for the kind invitation.

• 04.18.2016 - We published our next sponge paper: 'In four shallow and mesophotic tropical reef sponges from Guam the microbial community largely depends on host identity' in PeerJ.

• 06.10.2016 - Luckily the first annual AcroporaNet meeting was in Wageningen, my new workplace, and with some luck I even had the chance to talk about my sponge-associated microbes.

• 02.16.2016 - We published our Symbiodinium paper 'Influence of local environmental conditions and bleaching histories on the diversity and distribution of Symbiodinium in reef-building corals in Tanzania' in the African Journal of Marine Science.

• 12.20.2015 - After starting my sponge-microbe Post-Doc in Wageningen this September I already traveled a bit. End of October I visited as part of my project the BluePharmTrain Meeting and Symbiosis Workshop at the Tartu University in Tallin. In December I was in invited by Dr. Lucia Pita Galán and Prof. Ute Hentschel-Humida to the Marine Microbiology Seminar at the GEOMAR institute in Kiel to talk about the analysis of environmental patters of sponge-associated microbial communities. After this I also attended at the GEOMAR-Biotech Mini Symposium "Challenges and Opportunities in Marine Biotechnology Research and Development in Europe", also in Kiel. Check out my symposium poster and merry christmas.

• 09.09.2015 - Disputation day of my doctoral thesis.

• 09.01.2015 - I started a 2 year Marie Curie funded Post-Doc fellowship position in Detmer Sipkema's Marine Microbial Ecology lab at the Molecular Ecology Group (Wageningen Unviversity, Netherlands). I will be part of the BluePharmTrain Project, which is a multi-disciplinary alliance of 18 European academic and industrial partners working in collaboration to train young scientists in multi-disciplinary aspects of blue biotechnology.



• That also means I left Peter Schupp's lab after almost 4 years. Thanks for the great time!

• 08.01.2015 - Marine Biotechnology decided once again to use a publication related picture for their title cover, which is quite satisfying.

• 06.23.2015 - Over the course of the last two months I have written my PhD thesis. This is the final result and a picture that depicts my plans for the rest of the week.

• 02.26.2015 - Already two weeks ago we published another paper in Marine Biotechnology: 'Diversity of Actinobacteria associated with the marine ascidian Eudistoma toealensis'. I'm very happy about this and I'm already working on more sequence analyses. I think I will setup a new page in my "Work" section, since I've learned so much within the last two years. Some notes, links, pipelines. Work in progress, but I've already added a links section.

• 01.20.2015 - It's another year, I'm back in the office and lab and nothing exceptional happened, except our 12 days research testcruise with the brand new german Research Vessel Sonne from December the 1st until December the 13th from Kiel to Las Palmas - Hence, I've added some Sonne cruise pictures to the Gallery. It's an exceptional new ship! The 12 days were a great experience and I'm glad that I had the chance to be part of the last Geomar Kiel 6000 ROV sample test in the Atlantic Ocean before the RV Sonne finally went on to the Pacific. I do hope that I can return to this vessel again some day.



News article about our research cruise - click to enlarge

• 11.17.2014 - I'm back from the 2nd International Symposium on Sponge Microbiology with lots of new ideas. It was great to see some old friends and to meet some new. I really like those smaller, more personal meetings.
  Today, I was also lucky to visit the new research vessel Sonne during the open-ship day. I will upload some more pictures during my cruise in December this year!

• 10.24.2014 - One of the attendants of the Computational Molecular Analysis Summer School wrote a short report about the course: Summer School report by Maya Bode - If you are interested, please, visit our homepage for more information. I will also upload some pictures of the course here on my site. However, it was a great week and I think I could organize this again! Btw. tomorrow I will fly to Baltimore to visit the '2nd International Symposium on Sponge Microbiology 2014'. I'm very excited and I'm happy to see some of the Fremantle sponge conference folks in Baltimore again! And finally, a nearly two weeks trip with the new research vessel Sonne is already organised for December this year. Then we will have ROV and some time to check out how deep does it go.

• 09.15.2014 - Two nice things happened recently. First, Marine Biotechnology decided to put one of our sponges from the DGC study we published in their journal on to the cover of the current issue. And secondly, I got another DAAD conference grant. Hence, I will attend at the '2nd International Symposium on Sponge Microbiology' in Baltimore this year. And last but not least, only two weeks until our 'Computational Molecular Analysis Summer School' starts. This is exciting and I'm looking forward to finally meet every student and instructor in person.

• 06.24.2014 - Finally, I managed to update my homepage and added various older and more recent entries to my CV, studies and publications. Having this mentioned, our most recent publication is now available on Marine Biotechnology 'Application of Diffusion Growth Chambers for the Cultivation of Marine Sponge-Associated Bacteria'. Moreover, today I had an intriguing meeting with our Institute's admin and it seems that we will have access to a HPC cluster for our upcoming 16S amplicon miseq data in the near future. I can't wait to upload the raw files and see how it performs with this kind of computational backup.

• 05.05.2014 - It's perfect day for a short work in progress update. End of last week I received an acceptance mail from Marine Biotechnology for our diffusion-growth-chamber publication. I will write another update when it's online-first. Despite my short holiday in Helsinki I've got a mail about the "Understanding adaptation to habitat fragmentation and climate - from genes to populations" mini-symposium at the University of Helsinki on May 8th. Hence, my last day in Helsinki will end with another day full of talks. Moreover, this will go on after my return with my participation at the 2 days meta-analysis workshop at the ICBM-Terramare Wilhelmshaven (coincidentally also my workplace). This is a collaboration between the Universities of Groningen and Oldenburg - so far as I know this will be the second time this course will take place.

• 11.14.2013 - Hu, nearly six months went by since my last update. What happened during this time? Let's see.
  
  I was able to present a poster about my phylogenetic analysis of sponge associated bacteria during the Youmares Conference between the 09.11.2013 till 09.13.2013 in Oldenburg. It was a nice and comfy conference and I have to thank all the ICBM associated organizers for their great work.
  
  Then, I received two scholarships for my trip to the 9th Sponge World Conference in Fremantle (Australia). Hence, I really would like to the thank the DAAD again for their conference scholarship program and also the University Society of Oldenburg (UGO) for their decision to support my visit of the conference.
  
  Therefore, I visited Fremantle between the 11.01. till the 11.10. for my presentation about the sponge associated bacteria from growth chambers. The sponge conference seems to be always a very personal happening, and it was awesome meet so many names I only know from papers in person. Great talks and people and new friends. In the end I also came third for the best speed presentation - so, yay!
  
  Yesterday, I visited the MPI Software Days in Bremen and learned about their new project SILVAngs, which sounds very interesting. I'm looking forward to see how this will develop in the future.
  
  Moreover, today my working group moved finally into our new rooms and labs, which are now placed in the ICBM-Terramare building in Wilhelmshaven. I can see the sea from my new office and Samuel has a nice Samova on his desk. I can't complain.
  
  And last but not least...a new publication became published very recently and I was lucky enough to be involved: Goldman revisited: Faster-growing phytoplankton has lower N : P and lower stoichiometric flexibility" Limnol. Oceanogr., 58(6), 2013, 2076-2088

• 05.15.2013 - The 4 months are almost over and less than 3 weeks left in Auckland. At the moment I'm waiting for the 454 raw data of two different projects. The lab work went very well and it's great to get some hands on experience about all the different steps one have to accomplish in order to send your samples to a sequencing facility. Anyway, a third project is keeping me busy with continuous tree building and data formatting decision for subsequent statistics. I guess it will take a while to digest all the practical knowledge I gained during the last months. I will also try to update the gallery with some kiwi impressions and to write some new stuff for the work section. Altogether, I will return to Germany with a bunch of work to do and a lot of ideas for future projects. Cheers.

• 02.8.2013 - I arrived last Saturday in Auckland for my 4 months scholarship. The 20 hour flights with a constant AC stream is definitely not the best for ones health. Therefore, I stayed for 3 days in bed with fever, blocked head and nose, and the obligatory jet lag. But now, I'm back in business and I'm writing this little not from a small windowless room next to Mikes Lab. The no window option is surely the best way from keeping the bugs far away from my impaired immune system.

• 12.20.2012 - The time after my backpack trip through Vietnam and Cambodia was great. Our guest scientist Dr. Leonard Jones Chauka of the Institute of Marine Sciences (UDSM/ Zanzibar) started his 8-months-scholarship in our working group and involved me in some lab work for his project 'Genetic Diversity and Distribution of Free Living Symbiodinium on the Tanzanian Coast in the Context of Climate Change'. It's nice to get a glimpse in other projects and molecular lab techniques.

• 09.29.2012 - Received the DAAD short term scholarship for my research project 'Microbial Symbiosis and Diversity in Marine Sponges' in Auckland (New Zealand) in cooperation with Dr. Mike Taylor. Hence, I will leave Germany and the beautiful town of Wilhelmshaven end of January 2013 for 4 months to learn how to analyze 16S rRNA gene sequences generated by 454 pyrosequencing (and more).

• 09.20.2012 - My proposal for the funding and realization of the Computational Molecular Analysis Summer School in 2014 has been accepted by the Oltech graduate school.

• 09.18.2012 - Wow, I'm back from the ASSEMBLE supported 3 weeks sampling trip and field work at the Sven Lovén Centrum. It was a great time, I met a lot of very nice people and will meet them hopefully again. Anyway, check the gallery for some impressions. Diving, snorkeling and ROV sessions - so much fun and so long evenings/nights at the laboratory.

• 08.28.2012 - The ISME14 conference is over. During the last weekend I left Copenhagen and moved on to Göteborg. Yesterday I finally arrived at the Sven Lovén Centrum. So far, a great place. For now, I will take pictures and Sven will collect sponges. But there will be more work to do during the next 3 weeks, I guess.

• 08.24.2012 - By the way, last friday I submitted my DAAD application for a short abroad project in New Zealand. Stay tuned for more drama and excitement during the final decision times in October. Feel free to ask me If you have any questions how to apply for a DAAD travel grant. I have a lot of experience with it, now.

• 08.21.2012 - Arrived in Copenhagen 3 days ago. The ISME14 already started and my poster session was yesterday. And only 3 conference days left.

• 07.31.2012 - Since this saturday we have our first sponge and coral samples from Guam in our new fish tanks in Wilhelmshaven.

• 06.15.2012 - Great news. I received the Oltech travel grant for the ISME conference this year. Now, I will focus on my proposal for a New Zealand research & travel grant. Writing, writing, writing...

• 05.30.2012 - Added a few CoME 2012 pictures taken by the very nice Aglaia (Cilia) Antoniou.
  Furthermore, our working groups ASSEMBLE project has been approved. Well, the chance is pretty high that one can meet me in Sweden in September this year.

• 05.15.2012 - My poster submission for the ISME 2012 has been accepted. Hurray! See you in Copenhagen (maybe...still waiting for the grad school travel grant).

• 05.14.2012 - Arrived back home from the EMBO workshop CoME 2012 (Heraklion, Crete).
  I am still overwhelmed by the overall quality of this workshop, the awesome people I met during the course, and the great selection of unique lecturers and speakers like Aidan Budd, Alexandros Stamatakis, Brian Moore, Adam Leache, Nick Goldman, Olivier Gascuel, William R. Pearson, Bruce Rannala, Antonis Rokas, Maria Anisimova, John Huelsenbeck, Ziheng Yang and many more.
  Still wow. The 3 days of snorkeling in Bali (still Crete) were also pretty good. I will upload some pictures for the gallery. Furthermore, considering the things I have learned I should update the RAxML and MrBayes tutorials.

• 04.11.2012 - Enrolled in the graduate school 'Science and Technology' - 'Environmental Sciences and Biodiversity'

• 03.05.2012 - The RAxML Tutorial is online.

• 02.15.2012 - "Your article Species status and population structure of mussels (Mollusca: Bivalvia: Mytilus spp.) in the Wadden Sea of Lower Saxony (Germany) has just been published and is available as 'Online First' on SpringerLink."

• 01.23.2012 - Celebration! Today, my first peer-reviewed paper was accepted for the publication in "Organisms, Diversity and Evolution". Hence, I will update my Mytilus site when it's available online.

• 01.22.2012 - I have written a few words about the stoichiometry project I am involved in and I also started in writing a short RAxML tutorial, like I already did for MrBayes.

• 01.14.2012 - The homepage of my new working group Environmental Biochemistry is online, now. It is still under construction, but it's better than nothing to click at. I also keep updating my gallery. I have found old pictures from my Egypt excursion 2006, the ICBM science tour 2010 and my various Mytilus sampling trips in 2009.

• 01.12.2012 - I joined ISME. I am not sure, if I apply for the upcoming conference in Copenhagen, but I will definitely take advantage of the ISME Journal online access.

• 01.02.2012 - Gallery section updated - added pictures from Egypt 2011/2012

• 12.02.2011 - Successfully applied for the EMBO Computational Molecular Evolution course in 2012 in Crete - Hurray!

• 11.29.2011 - First light! My very first perceptible results of my thesis - Surely, there is a considerable scope for improvement - but now the work can start.

  

• 11.01.2011 - Started my PhD thesis in the new ICBM working group "Environmental Biochemistry" of Prof. Dr. Peter Schupp. And for that reason I left the "Planktology" working group after 1 1/2 successful years. It was a great appointment with wonderful and important experiences during that time. I am very glad having had this opportunity!

• 09.31.2011 - Returned with happily from the 15th Evolutionary Biology Meeting in Marseilles - a wonderful meeting with great participants and one exceptional atmosphere during the whole time.