Antje Gittel
Researcher
Centre for Geobiology
Homepage: https://sites.google.com/site/antjegittel/home
Title: Researcher
Phone: +47 55 58 47 15
E-mail: Antje.Gittel@bio.uib.no
Visiting address: Thormøhlensgate 53B
Prokaryotic communities in cryoturbated Arctic soil
Diversity, activity and abundance of sulfate and nitrate reducers in high-temperature oil production systems
2011-now - Postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Geobiology/Department of Biology at the University of Bergen, Norway.
2010 - Carlsberg fellowship at the Department of Biology at the University of Århus, Denmark.
2007-2009 - Postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Biology at the University of Århus, Denmark.
2007 - PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), University of Oldenburg, Germany.
Peer-reviewed publications
Gittel, A., Kofoed, M. V. W., Sørensen, K. B., Ingvorsen, K. and Schramm, A. (2012) Succession of Deferribacteres and Epsilonproteobacteria through a nitrate-treated high-temperature oil production facility. Syst. Appl. Microbiol. 35: 165-174
Gittel, A., Seidel, M., Kuever, J., Galushko, A., Cypionka, H., Koenneke, M. (2010) Desulfopila inferna sp. nov., a sulfate-reducing bacterium isolated from the subsurface of a tidal sandflat. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 60: 1626-1630.
Gittel, A., Sørensen, K. B., Skovhus, T. L., Ingvorsen, K., Schramm, A. (2009) Prokaryotic community structure and activity of sulfate reducers in production water from high-temperature oil reservoirs with and without nitrate treatment. Appl Environ Microbiol 75: 7086-7096.
Beck, M., Koester, J., Engelen, B., Holstein, J.M., Gittel, A., Koenneke, M., Riedel, T., Wirtz, K., Cypionka, H., Rullkoetter, J., Brumsack, H.-J. (2009) Deep pore water profiles reflect enhanced microbial activity towards tidal flat margins, Ocean Dynamics 59: 371-383. doi:10.1007/s10236-008-0176-z.
Gittel, A., Mußmann, M., Sass, H., Cypionka, H. and Koenneke, M. (2008) Identity and abundance of active sulfate-reducing bacteria in deep tidal flat sediments determined by directed cultivation and CARD-FISH analysis, Environ Microbiol 10: 26455-2658.
Engelen, B., Ziegelmueller, K.,Wolf, L., Koepke, B., Gittel, A., Treude, T., Nakagawa, S., Inagaki, F., Lever, M., Steinsbu, B. A., and Cypionka, H. (2008) Fluids from the ocean crust support microbial activities within the deep biosphere. Geomicrobiol J 25: 56-66.
Book chapters
Gittel, A. (2011) Monitoring and preventing reservoir souring using molecular microbiological methods (MMM). In: Applied Microbiology and Molecular Biology in Oilfield Systems. Springer Science+Business Media B.V., C. Whitby, T.L. Skovhus (eds.). pp 103-106.
First-author presentations (national & international)
2012
Annual Meeting of the German Society of General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM, Tuebingen, Germany) Microorganisms affecting the stabilization of soil organic carbon in cryoturbations of the Siberian Arctic. Oral presentation.
2011
Nordic Environmental NUcleotide Network (NENUN) workshop (Reykjavik, Iceland) Structure and diversity of microbial communities in permafrost-affected and cryoturbated soil in the Siberian Arctic. Oral presentation.
International Conference on Polar and Alpine Microbiology (Ljubljana, Slovenia) In-depth analysis of microbial permafrost communities in the European and Siberian Arctic. Oral presentation (* Dr. Tim Urich, presenting author).
Gordon Research Conference on Applied and Environmental Microbiology (South Hadley, USA). Analysis of microbial permafrost communities in the East-Siberian Arctic. Poster.
2010
Annual Meeting of the International Society of Microbial Ecology (ISME-13, Seattle, U.S.A.) Stimulation of potential nitrate reducers and their succession in a nitrate-treated high-temperature oil production facility. Poster.
2009
International Workshop on New Techniques In Microbial Ecology (INTIME-7, Lackenhof, Austria). Prokaryotic community structure and activity of sulfate reducers in high-temperature oil production systems with and without nitrate treatment. Oral presentation.
International Symposium on Applied Microbiology and Molecular Biology in Oil Systems (ISMOS-2, Aarhus, Denmark). Prokaryotic community structure and activity of sulfate reducers in high-temperature oil production systems with and without nitrate treatment. Oral presentation.
Annual Meeting of the German Society of General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM, Bochum, Germany). Potential of nitrate addition to control the activity of sulfate-reducing prokaryotes in high-temperature oil production systems. Poster.
2008
Reservoir Microbiology Forum (RMF, London, United Kingdom). Effect of nitrate addition on prokaryotic diversity and the activity of sulfate-reducing prokaryotes in high-temperature oil production systems. Oral presentation.
Annual Meeting of the International Society of Microbial Ecology (ISME-12, Cairns, Australia). Effect of nitrate addition on the diversity and activity of sulfate-reducing prokaryotes in high-temperature oil production systems. Poster.
2007
Annual Meeting of the German Society of General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM, Osnabrueck, Germany). Sulfate-reducing bacteria form highly active and abundant populations in deep tidal flat sediments. Oral presentation.
2006
Annual Meeting of the International Society of Microbial Ecology (ISME-11, Vienna, Austria). SubsurfaceWadden Sea sediments harbour an active and diverse community of sulfate-reducing bacteria. Poster.
Annual Meeting of the German Society of General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM, Jena, Germany). Does the vertical distribution of cultured sulfate-reducing bacteria reflect elevated activities in deep sediments of an intertidal sand flat? Poster.
2005
Summer Meeting of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO, Santiago de Compostela, Spain). Detecting sulfate-reducing bacteria in coastal subsurface sediments by geochemical and molecular approaches. Poster.
AND several contributions as co-author
CryoCARB
CryoCARB represents a multinational collaboration between 8 European countries and Russia, applying an interdisciplinary approach to address critically important issues that link cryoturbated arctic soils to the global carbon cycle. Such a comprehensive undertaking, from molecular microbiology to landscape level carbon inventories and modelling of circum-arctic carbon storage in future climates, is new and has not yet been implemented anywhere for the Arctic.
Permafrost underlies ~26% of terrestrial ecosystems and is estimated to contain around 50% of the world’s soil carbon. The total organic carbon pool in soils (SOC) of the circum-arctic permafrost zone has been estimated to contain ~400 Gt C in the upper 1 m and as much as 747 Gt C in the upper 3 m, excluding peatlands and carbon in deep loess sediment. This is more than today's global atmospheric C pool (730 Gt C). As Arctic surface temperatures on average increased to a greater extent than those of the rest of the earth (IPCC, 2001), Arctic permafrost is particularly susceptible to degradation. For East Siberia, an increase of mean annual ground temperature by up to 6 °C and of active layer depth by up to 2 m is estimated for the end of the 21st century. This globally significant C reservoir may thus become a future source of a large amount of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere.
Despite its undisputed importance for the global carbon cycle, the amount of SOC stored in Arctic soil remains ambiguous and poorly constrained, which is especially true for Arctic Russia. There is increasing evidence that a significant proportion of this SOC is stored in the subducted organic matter of Cryosols, suggesting that cryoturbation (= mixing of soil layers due to freezing and thawing) may be one of the most important mechanisms of Arctic carbon storage.
It is known that soil ecosystems harbor the most complex microbial ecosystems on Earth, but very little is known about their composition and structure which is particularly true for permafrost soils. The flexibility of the microbial community in permafrost to react on temperature fluctuation and other physical and chemical changes will determine their reaction to cryoturbation. Thus, the genetic potential of the microorganisms present in permafrost is likely to determine whether permafrost environments will become net sources or sinks of greenhouse gases following warming. In depth analysis of microbial communities in different transects of cryoturbated Siberian permafrost (Cherskii, Taymyr, Vorkuta) is therefore expected to provide comparative data to dissect the major group of organisms active in carbon turnover. It will also shed light on organisms that are highly adapted/sensitive to temperature and climate changes or to secondary effects imposed by cryoturbation.