Dr. Eugen Bauer

Illustration

Dr. Eugen Bauer

Evolutionary Ecology
Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution
Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch-Weg 15
55128 Mainz, Germany

phone: +49 - (0) 6131 - 39 25200
fax: +49 - (0) 6131 - 39 23731

baeugen@uni-mainz.de

 

Research interests

I am interested in the computational analyses of complex biological datasets. This includes data of symbiotic microbial communities and their hosts. In particular, I perform sequence analyses and functional studies to understand species interactions and construct models in systems biology. With these models it is possible to make relevant predictions to understand the mechanisms of microbial ecosystems in a symbiotic context.

In my post-doctoral project, I am focusing on the gut microbiota of the cotton stainer Dysdercus fasciatus. The gut microbiota of this firebug consist of a complex composition of microbes, including the symbionts Coriobacterium and Gordonibacter. Using genome and metagenome sequencing, I want to reconstruct each microbe and assess its metabolic potential. Moreover, by combining these microbes through community simulations, it is possible to make prediction on the dietary response of the gut microbiota and the nutritional ecology of the cotton stainer.

The cotton stainer Dysdercus fasciatus (Photo: MPI for Chemical Ecology/Kaltenpoth) and the predicted metabolic interactions between seven identified microbes from the firebug gut. The edge weight is scaled by number of exchanged metabolites.