Bilde av Söllinger, Andrea
Bilde av Söllinger, Andrea
Researcher Department of Arctic and Marine Biology andrea.soellinger@uit.no +4777646104 You can find me here

Andrea Söllinger


Job description

I am a microbiologist and microbial ecologist working at UiT since 2019, currently as a researcher in the Cells in the Cold Laboratory. Ever since my PhD at the University of Vienna, Austria, I am utilizing state-of-the-art cultivation-independent methods, such as multi-omics techniques, to study microorganisms, their functions, and their responses to climate change in a broad variety of habitats including grasslands, forests, peatlands, and animal intestinal tracts. 

Click the "Attachments" button for a detailed CV.


  • Andrea Söllinger, Laureen Sarah Ahlers, Mathilde Borg Dahl, Páll Sigurðsson, Coline Le Noir de Carlan, Biplabi Bhattarai et al.:
    Microorganisms in subarctic soils are depleted of ribosomes under short-, medium-, and long-term warming
    The ISME Journal 2024 ARKIV / DOI
  • Tilman John Siegfried Schmider, Anne Grethe Hestnes, Julia Brzykcy, Hannes Schmidt, Arno Schintlmeister, Benjamin Roller et al.:
    Physiological basis for atmospheric methane oxidation and methanotrophic growth on air
    Nature Communications 2024 ARKIV / DOI
  • Alexander Tveit, Andrea Söllinger, Edda Marie Rainer, Alena Didriksen, Anne Grethe Hestnes, Liabo Motleleng et al.:
    Thermal acclimation of methanotrophs from the genus Methylobacter
    The ISME Journal 2023 ARKIV / DOI
  • Mathilde Borg Dahl, Andrea Söllinger, Páll Sigurðsson, Ivan Janssens, Josep Peñuelas, Bjarni D. Sigurdsson et al.:
    Long-term warming-induced trophic downgrading in the soil microbial food web
    Soil Biology and Biochemistry 2023 ARKIV / DOI
  • Andrea Söllinger, Joana Séneca, Mathilde Borg Dahl, Liabo Lillien Motleleng, Judith Prommer, Erik Verbruggen et al.:
    Down-regulation of the bacterial protein biosynthesis machinery in response to weeks, years, and decades of soil warming
    Science Advances 2022 ARKIV / DOI
  • Joana Séneca, Andrea Söllinger, Craig W. Herbold, Petra Pjevac, Judith Prommer, Erik Verbruggen et al.:
    Increased microbial expression of organic nitrogen cycling genes in long-term warmed grassland soils
    ISME Communications 2021 DOI
  • Sebastian Petters, Verena Groß, Andrea Söllinger, Michelle Pichler, Anne Reinhard, Mia Maria Bengtsson et al.:
    The soil microbial food web revisited: Predatory myxobacteria as keystone taxa?
    The ISME Journal 2021 ARKIV / DOI
  • Micha Weil, Katharina Hoff, Walter Meißner, Fabian Schäfer, Andrea Söllinger, Haitao Wang et al.:
    Full Genome Sequence of a Methanomassiliicoccales Representative Enriched from Peat Soil
    Microbiology Resource Announcements (MRA) 2021
  • Andrea Söllinger, Tim Urich :
    Methylotrophic methanogens everywhere — physiology and ecology of novel players in global methane cycling
    Biochemical Society Transactions 2019
  • Andrea Söllinger, Alexander Tøsdal Tveit, Morten Poulsen, Samantha Joan Noel, Mia M. B. Bengtsson, Jörg Bernhardt et al.:
    Holistic Assessment of Rumen Microbiome Dynamics through Quantitative Metatranscriptomics Reveals Multifunctional Redundancy during Key Steps of Anaerobic Feed Degradation
    mSystems 2018 ARKIV / DOI
  • Kevin W. Becker, Felix J. Elling, Marcos Y. Yoshinaga, Andrea Söllinger, Tim Urich, Kai-Uwe Hinrichs :
    Unusual Butane- and Pentanetriol-Based Tetraether Lipids in Methanomassiliicoccus luminyensis, a Representative of the Seventh Order of Methanogens
    Applied and Environmental Microbiology 2016
  • Andrea Söllinger, Clarissa Schwab, Thomas Weinmaier, Alexander Loy, Alexander Tøsdal Tveit, Christa Schleper et al.:
    Phylogenetic and genomic analysis of Methanomassiliicoccales in wetlands and animal intestinal tracts reveals clade-specific habitat
    FEMS Microbiology Ecology 2016 ARKIV / DOI
  • Andrea Söllinger :
    The ForHot project – a microbial perspective
    2023
  • Andrea Söllinger :
    Using (quantitative) metatranscriptomics to study complex microbial communities
    2023
  • Andrea Söllinger, Laureen Ahlers, Mathilde Borg Dahl, Pall Sigurdsson, Liabo Motleleng, Eva Marie Breines et al.:
    Is soil microbial biomass depleted of ribosomes under short-, medium-, and long-term warming?
    2023
  • Andrea Söllinger, Joana Séneca, Mathilde Dahl, Liabo Motleleng, Judith Prommer, Erik Verbruggen et al.:
    Physiological responses of soil microorganisms to weeks, years, and decades of soil warming
    2022
  • Yngvild Bjørdal, Kathrin Marina Bender, Liabo Motleleng, Bente Lindgård, Andreas Richter, Victoria Sophie Martin et al.:
    Higher rRNA concentrations lead to elevated methane production rates during cooling in Arctic peatlands?
    2022
  • Kathrin Marina Bender, Andrea Söllinger, Victoria Sophie Martin, Yngvild Bjørdal, Maarten Loonen, Andreas Richter et al.:
    Herbivory-driven vegetation change shapes the soil microbial food web in high-Arctic peat
    2022
  • Andrea Söllinger, Borg Dahl Mathilde, Joana Séneca, Judith Prommer, Erik Verbruggen, Bjarni D. Sigurdsson et al.:
    Central Metabolic Responses of Microorganisms to Years and Decades of Soil Warming
    2021
  • Andrea Söllinger, Alexander Tveit :
    What’s new in Tromsø?
    2021
  • Joana Séneca, Andrea Söllinger, Alexander Tveit, Petra Pjevac, Craig W. Herbold, Tim Urich et al.:
    Soil warming leads to an up-regulation of genes involved in the decomposition of organic N in a subarctic grassland
    2020
  • Andrea Söllinger, Alexander Tveit :
    Metatranscriptomics revealed multi-layered microbial responses to long-term soil warming
    2020
  • Andrea Söllinger, Tilman Schmider, Alexander Tveit :
    Temporal Dynamics of Cold-Adapted CH4-Cycling Microorganisms & Microbial Communities in a Changing Arctic
    2019
  • Andrea Söllinger, Kathrin Marina Bender :
    The history and future of microbial ecology
    2019
  • Andrea Söllinger, Tim Urich :
    Quantitative metatranscriptomics
    2019
  • Andrea Söllinger, Alexander Tveit :
    Natural soil warming of Icelandic grasslands – metatranscriptomic insights – mRNA
    2019
  • Andrea Söllinger :
    "Bakterier og venner" Stand at forskningstorget
    2019
  • Andrea Söllinger :
    "Bakterier og venner" Stand at forskningstorget
    2019

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    Research interests

    I am a microbiologist and microbial ecologist by training and still fascinated by the tremendous impact microorganisms have on our planet and all life on Earth.

    In my early scientific life (besides microscoping dead grasshoppers at the age of ten), I studied and cultivated, at that time poorly characterized, methane producing microorganisms (methanogens), the Methanomassiliicoccales, focusing on their role in the global carbon cycle and their importance as greenhouse gas producers.

    During my PhD at the University of Vienna, Austria, and the University of Greifswald, Germany (where I stayed for a postdoc position), I started to use metatranscriptomics, metagenomics, and proteomics to study microorganisms in pure culture as well as complex free-living and host-associated microbial communities with relevance for greenhouse gas mitigation, human health, and ecosystem stability.

    In early 2019, I moved into the Arctic and adapted my personal and my scientific work to colder temperatures. Within the project Cells in the Cold, led by Alexander T. Tveit, and the international ForHot project, I am currently focusing on investigating functional changes in cold-adapted microbial communities in soils exposed to warming.  

    Recently, we identified the first common microbial physiological response to weeks, years, and decades of grassland soil warming (+6 °C) – the downregulation of the bacterial protein biosynthesis machinery (Söllinger et al., Science Advances, 2022). In other words, cellular numbers of ribosomes, the macromolecular complexes synthesising proteins, are reduced at higher temperatures. By reducing the cellular ribosome content, substantial amounts of energy and matter can be spared and potentially re-allocated.

    In my ongoing and future work, I want to follow up on these findings and reveal the relevance of cellular ribosome reduction across seasons and ecosystems, expanding from soil to freshwater and marine systems. Furthermore, I want to assess multifaceted consequences including alterations of terrestrial and aquatic food webs and greenhouse gas emissions, ultimately needed to project and manage climate change impacts on Arctic ecosystems and human welfare in the High North.

     

    Follow one of the links below to access my publications:

    Google Scholar

    ResearchGate

    ORCID

     

    Teaching

    Even though my current position technically does not included teaching, I have been supervising and co-supervising bachelor, master, and PhD students at UiT since I started working here and I am currently taking the UNIPED-100 course (foundational course in university pedagogy).

    Furthermore, together with a former colleague, I founded the Microbiology @ UiT Journal Club in April 2022 and have been organizing it ever since.