My main research goal is understanding the responses of organisms, especially freshwater organisms to different stresses. During the master’s degree my research was focused on understanding the effect of different metals on the metabolism of freshwater diatom cells. Now as a PhD candidate, I am working with leaf-associated microbial communities in streams. My project aims at assessing the stress tolerance of these communities from either pristine environments or aquatic systems receiving wastewater treatment plant effluents or vineyard runoff by exposing them towards increasing levels of nutrients and fungicides. Moreover, we aim at underlying the mechanisms by linking the community responses to traits (enzymatic inventory and nutritious quality) and to the effects in the heterotrophic food webs and the functioning of aquatic ecosystems.

BIO2FUN aims at understanding which traits of individual aquatic hyphomycete species of pristine or stress adapted communities determine their contribution to the two functions this group of aquatic fungi provides: decomposition of leaf material and the nutritious quality of leaves for leaf shredding organisms.