Postdoc position: Mortality and virus-host interactions of phytoplankton in Arctic winters unde

Postdoc position:
Mortality and virus-host interactions of phytoplankton in Arctic winters under warming

NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research is the National Oceanographic Institution of the Netherlands.

The Department of Marine Microbiology and Biogeochemistry (MMB) of NIOZ is looking for a talented and dedicated Postdoctoral scientist to join our research on marine virus ecology. You will be part of the larger research consortium project SURPHYVE, aimed at investigating the survival of phytoplankton in Arctic winters under warming.

THE INSTITUTE

NWO-NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research is the Dutch national oceanographic institute and principally performs academically excellent multidisciplinary, fundamental, and frontier applied marine research addressing important scientific and societal questions pertinent to the functioning of the ocean and seas. NIOZ includes the National Marine Research Facilities (NMF) department that operates a fleet of research vessels and the national pool of large seagoing equipment, and supports excellence in multidisciplinary marine research, education, and policy development.

The research of the Department of Marine Microbiology and Biogeochemistry (MMB) has a long history of studying all domains of microbial life (viral, prokaryotic and eukaryotic), their interactions, and their role in biogeochemical cycling in a variety of marine environments, varying from coastal environments to the deep ocean and sediments. The department is equipped with state-of-the-art laboratories, bioinformatics resources and analytical equipment, and has an excellent level of technical support.

THE PROJECT

General background SURPHYVE. In the Arctic Ocean, photosynthetic phytoplankton face a major energetic bottleneck during winter: they must survive several months of darkness during the polar night. To survive, polar phytoplankton species may rely on storage compounds accompanied by downregulation of respiration and/or switch to mixotrophy (heterotrophic utilization of organic compounds or microbial prey). The fast rate of climate warming in the Arctic is expected to further challenge phytoplankton winter survival, as the higher metabolic rates at higher temperatures might deplete energy reserves faster (causing a stronger dependence on heterotrophic carbon acquisition).

Additionally, mortality rates (grazing, sinking, and viral lysis) can be expected to change with warming. The mechanisms underlying Arctic phytoplankton winter survival are, however, not well understood. Using a complementary approach - combining the analysis of existing winter omics data, targeted winter field work, and detailed experiments for rate estimations and process-understanding - SURPHYVE will provide the basis for urgently needed projections on how (future) changes in winter phytoplankton communities affect seeding the spring bloom, and consequently the structure and production of the pelagic Arctic ecosystem.

The SURPHYVE project is a collaboration between the University of Amsterdam (UvA, Dr. Susanne Wilken), the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI, Dr. Clara Hoppe), and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research (NIOZ, Prof. Corina Brussaard), assessing the mechanisms underlying Arctic phytoplankton winter survival under current and warming conditions. A PhD (UvA) investigates the role of phagotrophy in phytoplankton winter survival, PD-1 (AWI) will focus on osmotrophy as survival mechanism, and PD-2 (NIOZ) will focus on the potential of virovory, phytoplankton mortality and virus-host interactions.

The current vacancy regards the 33-months Postdoc position PD-2 with NIOZ, aimed to start preferably summer 2026.

Postdoc research. The research related to this PD position (33 months) is diverse and involves winter fieldwork, laboratory experiments and analysis of omics data sets. The research will focus on (1) omics analysis to identify and investigate the prevalence of Arctic phytoplankton viruses in combination with their host abundance dynamics by exploiting an existing omics data set; and by sorting field samples for meta-genomics analysis, (2) fieldwork (2x 1 month) to determine…