Caroline de Tender

Background

About Caroline de Tender

How can we provide enough food for the coming generations? How can we deal with the enormous amount of garbage we created? Maybe micro-organisms can provide an answer to these questions! Currently I am working as a PhD student at the Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO) within the Genomics Project. In my project,next-generation sequencing techniques, e.g. amplicon sequencing and Whole Genome Shotgun Sequencing, are used to study microbial communities. In fact,two different research topics are studied using these techniques: First, the influence of the addition of soil treatments (biochar, chitin.) on the microbial (bacterial) composition of the lettuce and strawberry rhizosphere is tested. By studying simultaneously shifts in the microbial community induced by the addition of a treatment, and the influence of the treatment on the plant and soil characteristics, we hope to find a correlation. In this way, micro-organisms can help us to improve the strength, the growth and maybe the production yield of the plant. Second, the bacterial community on plastic debris from the sea is studied. It is shown that bacteria are able to colonize plastic particles, and that the community on the plastic is different from those of seawater and sediment. This can raise the question if bacteria are able to use plastic as a transport vehicle. Or maybe there are some species present that can break down the plastic and help us to clean-up the seas!