300317 VO Biodiversity of Microorganisms 1 (2007W)

This lecture series will provide an encompassing overview on molecular biological methods suitable for structure-function analyses of microbial communities in complex environmental and medical samples. After introduction to species richness and evenness parameters, which are used to describe microbial diversity, and to the species concept in bacteriology, a detailed description of the full cycle rRNA approach is presented. In addition fingerprinting methods as well as DNA microarray technology are covered in the first part of this series. The second part will deal with methods for in situ analyses of the function like FISH-microautoradiography, stable isotope probing, and the use of functional genes as phylogenetic and ecological marker molecules. Students attending this lecture series will obtain a detailed overview on cutting edge technology in environmental microbiology and will become acquainted with relevant primary literature as well as recent research results.