Image: Madeleine Ramstedt
Image: Madeleine Ramstedt
Research project Microorganisms in environmental systems often exist in the form of multi-species communities for example covering rocks in streams etc. In this project we investigate these microbial systems and how they interact with pollutants.
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We currently have two ongoing research projects concerning environmental biofilms. One concerning biofilm interactions with pharmaceuticals and the other biofilm interactions with Hg.
In the first project, we study the interactions between multi-species biofilms in fresh water and pharmaceuticals in the environment. The research consists of three stages: I) Inventory of natural biofilms in a stream affected by wastewater with pharmaceuticals, II) construction of model systems that can reproduce certain aspects of natural biofilms, III) pilot investigation of global biofilm interactions with pharmaceuticals. This work is funded through a project grant from The Swedish Research Council Formas as well a funding from Umeå University. It was started in 2018 and is a collaboration with Jerker Fick at Umeå University and Mette Burmølle at University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
The second project deals with increasing fundamental understanding of how biofilms influence the biogeochemical cycling of Hg. This project is done in close collaboration with the group of Erik Björn at the Chemistry department. It is funded through a project grant from the Kempe foundation and started in 2020.
2023. Methylmercury formation in biofilms of Geobacter sulfurreducens
