Journal of Marine Science: Research & Development
Open Access

Abstract

Since the Bass-Becking (1934) hypothesis regarding microorganisms "Everything is everywhere but the environment selects" there has been immense progress on the biogeography and global distribution of marine prokaryotes. Most of this progress is due to the advent of the next generation sequencing (NGS) methods that boomed the last decade. Although field work is essential in revealing global distribution of microorganisms, the use of micro- and mesocosms provide an appropriate tool for testing specific hypothesis. Here, the author will report on the recent research on artificial mixing of prokaryotic communities in order to test the environmental selection of specific prokaryotes in grazer-free microcosms and also the effect of simulated climatic change conditions on shaping prokaryotic communities in marine mesocosms.

Biography

Konstantinos Kormas completed his undergraduate studies at the School of Biology, University of Athens, Greece and his PhD on marine biology at the same institution. After two Post docs at the Trondhjem Biological Station, Norway, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA, he returned to Greece and since 2005 is a faculty member at the Dept. of Ichthyology and Aquatic Environment, University of Thessaly, currently as an Associate Professor. His research interests focus on the diversity and ecological role of microorganisms in the aquatic environment, and in particular marine coastal environments and lakes. During the last five years he has focused on the identification, distribution, biogeography and ecophysiology of gut microorganisms of aquatic animals, including species of commercial interest, wild and reared. His work includes field and laboratory work, with specialty on molecular approaches in the identification of phylogenetic and functional genes of prokaryotes and unicellular eukaryotes. He is the author/coauthor of more than 60 peer-reviewed papers and the author of the book ? Ecology of aquatic microorganisms ? (in Greek). He is also serving as an editor-in-chief in one scientific journal, as an editorial member in four scientific journals and as a reviewer in 40 scientific journals.