Parasitic interactions among aquatic microbes are important in structuring the community and affect carbon cycling in the lake. Our understanding of the diversity of parasites in the lake ecosystem and their interactions is limited to few groups and one-on-one interactions. In the context of this position, we will focus on understanding the functional basis of interactions between hosts and their co-infecting viruses in multipartite model systems. We also will develop other host-parasite model systems and study their interactions in a system with gradual addition of trophic constituents.
You will be engaged in both laboratory experiments and bioinformatics analyses of multi-omics datasets generated from host-parasite model systems and environmental samples. Major part of this position will focus on analysis of host-virus dynamics and identifying the functional basis of their interactions but also includes working on other types of parasitic interactions in the lake ecosystem. The research includes fieldwork for lake sampling and sample processing as well as experimental manipulations in the laboratory, cultivation of the host and isolation of parasites, alternative analytical methods, multi-omics analyses and scientific communication.