Research lines
Marine ecosystems
We are interested about the impact of environment changes (warming, deoxygenation and acidification) on marine microbial communinites. Among questions, the deoxygenation of coastal systems is of primary importance. Oxygen deficiency is spreading in aquatic environments as a consequence of anthropogenic loading of nutrients and global warming. This has strong implications for ecosystems functioning including the expansion of dead zones and severe alterations of global biogeochemical cycles. We aim to advance the knowledge about the consequences of deoxygenation of coastal systems on microbial metabolisms and the subsequent impacts on their functions at an ecosystem-scale using molecular (paleo)ecology tools.
Currently, our projects include the study of the biogeographical distribution of Hg-cycling microorganisms in the global ocean (Meta-Hg working group) and the exploration of the microbial ecology of the Baltic Sea (w Anders Andersson and Elinor Andrén), the Black Sea (w Marco Coolen), Cariaco Basin (w Maria Pachiadaki), Norwegian fjords (w Erik Björn, Andrea Garcia Bravo and Stefan Bertilsson), Swedish fjords (w Carina Bunse, Helena Filipsson, Courtney Stairs and Stefano Bonaglia), Greenland fjords (w Carl Lamborg) and Mayotte coral reefs (w Nick Kamenos and Heidi Burdett).
Funding:
- 2024: Research grant from SWERVE- Funding 8 days of ship time onboard R/V Svea. Project BIOX - Exploring the biogeochemistry and microbial ecology of oxygen-depleted fjords: historical and modern insights. Applicant: Eric Capo (co-Pis Stefan Bertilsson, Erik Björn, Stefano Bonaglia, Carina Bunse, Jeffrey Hawkes, Helena Filipsson, Francisco Nascimento, Courtney Stairs). Equivalent 1.08 M SEK (97,100 €).
- 2024: Kempe Icelab post-doctoral fellowship. Environmental paleomicrobiology: Inferring community composition and function from metabolic fossils. Applicants: E Capo & E Libby. 734 kSEK (66,000 €).
- 2023: Starting grant funded by the Swedish Research Council VR (grant 2023-03504). Gasping for Breath: Exploring the consequences of coastal deoxygenation on microbial processes and ecosystem services. Applicant : E Capo. 4 MSEK (342,000 €).
- 2023: Kempe post-doctoral fellowship. Effects of the deoxygenation of coastal systems on microbial metabolisms and related services. Applicants : E Capo & E Björn. 672 kSEK (59,000 €).
- 2021: ICM Severo Ochoa post-doc fellowship (Spain). Unveiling the role of Hg-cycling microorganisms in the global ocean. Applicant: E Capo. 88,000 €
- 2021: Research grant funded by Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development Formas. Methylmercury formation in coastal seas: understanding risks associated with permanent and temporary oxygen deficiency. Lead applicant: E Björn (E Capo as co-applicant). 3 MSEK (290,000 €)
- 2020: Research grant funded by the Ecochange research program: Adapted or replaced? Understanding the freshwater-to-brackish transition of the Baltic Sea microbiome by ancient DNA analysis. Applicants: E Capo & AF Andersson. 126 kSEK (12,000 €)
Lake ecosystems
Lake microbial communities are highly sensitive to environmental change and their changes in diversity, composition and abundance could be use as indicators. However, there are only few long-term series that encompass their temporal dynamics pre- and post- environmental disturbances. We use the DNA present in the water and the sedimentary archives of lake systems to provide new knowledge about the spatial and temporal dynamics of lake microbial communities towards a better characterization of their response to environmental change.
Current projects include the study of microbial communities from Abisko lakes (w Jan Karlsson), Lake Kassjön (w Johan Rydberg), Lake Ekoln (w Stefan Bertilsson), Lake Biwa (w Narumi Tsugeki), Chinese lakes (w Dongna Yan, Yu Zhao and Yanggheng Liu), peri-alpine lakes (w Isabelle Domaizon and Cécilia Barouillet), New Zealand lakes (w John Pearman), Lake NamCo (w Hendrik Vogel and Camille Thomas). The book Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments: Volume 6 – Sedimentary DNA was release in December 2023. It provides an overview of the sedimentary DNA-based approaches in paleolimnology, and more specifically on the recovery of the DNA preserved in sedimentary archives to study past environmental change. Editors are Eric Capo, Cecilia Barouillet and John Smol. This project is an initiative from the sedaDNA scientific society.
Funding:
- 2025: Research Grant funded by Göran Gustafsson foundation (stifelse för natur och miljö i Lappland 2025). Mapping the microbial diversity in subarctic lakes (Lappland) with a drone-sampling environmental DNA sequencing approach. Applicant: Eric Capo. 99.8 kSEK (8,970 €)
- 2025: Research Grant funded by CIRC. Unraveling microbial diversity in Swedish Arctic lakes. Applicant: Eric Capo (Collabs: Meifang Zhong, Baraa Rehamnia, Johan van Snippenberg). 80 kSEK (7,190 €)
- 2023: Research grant funded by 2023 Endeavour Fund from New Zealand government. Applying a functional evidence approach to prioritise lake restoration initiatives. Applicant: J Pearman (E Capo as collaborator). 1 MNZD (550,000 €)
- 2022: Research grant funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Synergia, CRSII5_213522). Deep biosphere-geosphere interactions at the top of the world (DIGESTED): An interdisciplinary approach to interpret a Myr climate record from lake Nam Co (Tibetan Plateau) Applicant: H Vogel (E Capo as collaborator, WP4). 3 MCHF (3,116,000 €)
- 2021: Research grant (2021-2024) funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research. Development of new method for reconstructing microorganisms using sedimentary DNA to assess the effect of global warming measures on lake ecosystems. Applicant: N Tsugeki. (E Capo as collaborator). 3,2 MYEN (10,700 €)
- 2020: Research grant funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science: Reconstruction of host and parasite during the past century in Lake Biwa by using paleolimnological analysis. Applicant: N Tsugeki (E Capo as collaborator). 900 kYEN (6,980 €)
- 2019: Research grant funded by Anna-Greta and Holger Crafoord’s Research Grant in Biosciences in the field of Aquatic microbial ecology. A key to unravel lake history from the sedimentary black box : Sedimentary DNA to reconstruct long-term dynamics of aquatic microbial communities. Applicant: E Capo. 122 kSEK (10,600 €)