Niko Leisch
Position: will start his PhD soon
Investigations
For my master thesis, I investigated (within the framework of the ASF project #20394 - A marine flatworm/chemoautotrophic bacteria symbiosis) the symbiosis between Paracatenula spp. (Retronectidae, Catenulida Platyhelminthes) and their bacterial endosymbionts.
My topic was the organization of the trophosome - the tissue hosting the endosymbiotic bacteria. I analyzed its general composition with a special focus on several details (sperm, dorsal cord and neoblasts) to better understand this unique symbiotic interaction.
Contact
phone: +43/1/4277/57109
Publications
Harald Ronald Gruber-Vodicka, Ulrich Dirks, Nikolaus Leisch, Christian Baranyi, Kilian Stoecker, Silvia Bulgheresi, Niels Robert Heindl, Matthias Horn, Christian Lott, Alexander Loy, Michael Wagner, and Jörg Ott. Paracatenula, an ancient symbiosis between thiotrophic Alphaproteobacteria and catenulid flatworms. PNAS 2011
published ahead of print June 27, 2011, doi:10.1073/pnas.1105347108 - online here
Research field trips
2010 2 week sampling at the D.M.R.C. Dahab, Egypt
2009 2 weeks sampling at the D.M.R.C. Dahab, Egypt
Skills
Sample preparation for TEM and SEM (including chemical fixation, embedding, sectioning), TEM (including elemental analysis with ESI, EELS) and SEM (including ESEM and elemental analysis with EDAX), stable isotope tracing, GIS software and analysis, scuba diving and underwater fieldwork
Scholarships & Awards
2010 University of Vienna short term grant “Kurzfristige Wissenschaftliche Arbeiten im Ausland”, to Dahab, Egypt