RAIN Angel

RAIN Angel Doctorant UPMC Laboratoire d'Océanographie Microbienne (LOMIC) - UMR 7621 CNRS-UPMC Avenue Fontaulé - 66650 Banyuls sur mer, France Tél: E-mail: angel.rain @ obs-banyuls.fr (angel.rain @ obs-banyuls.fr)

Research interests

Oceanography, biogeochemical cycles, microbial ecology and photobiology

Formation

2012 Marine Biology, University of Concepcion, Chile.

2016 Master in Oceanography, University of Concepcion, Chile.

Subject of thesis: Consequences of environmental disturbances on aquatic microbial structure and their functional stability

The objective of my project is to study the consequences of environmental disturbances on individual bacterial strains and complex microbial communities. Due to their enormous population sizes within little sample volume and short generation times, microbial communities offer systems, from which large datasets with correspondingly high statistical power can be generated in comparatively simple experimental setups. I will focus on changing salinity as environmental perturbation factor. Changing salinity is a direct stressor to microorganisms and has been described as a major driver of microbial community composition. The use of salinity changes as disturbance is also relevant in the face of climate change scenarios, which include that many aquatic systems are threatened by salinity changes or increased fluctuation of salinity. The aim of this Ph.D. project will be to gain insight and better understand mechanisms that are decisive for the stability of aquatic ecosystem processes after disturbances using an experimental approach (long-term pulse disturbance experiments in chemostats).

Supervisors:

Camila Fernandez

Sara Beier

Publications:

• Levipan, H. A., Molina, V., Anguita, C., Rain-Franco, A., Belmar, L. and Fernandez, C. (2016), Variability of nitrifying communities in surface coastal waters of the Eastern South Pacific (∼36° S). Environmental Microbiology Reports, 8: 851–864. doi:10.1111/1758-2229.12448
• Rain-Franco A, Muñoz C., & Fernandez C (2014) Ammonium Production off Central Chile (36°S) by Photodegradation of Phytoplankton-Derived and Marine Dissolved Organic Matter. PLoS ONE 9(6): e100224. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0100224