Franziska Billmaier, MSc (Doktorandin)

Aquatic fungi on macroplastics

Following on from the work in our department on biofilms and plastic as a pollutant in water bodies, I am interested in fungi in this ecological niche.

Fungi are not only responsible for the turnover of organic matter (=natural polymers; as found in wood, leaves, pollen, insects and arachnids) on land, but also in water bodies. They are an enormously important component of aquatic food webs and a species- and form-rich group of organisms with complex life cycles.

The species diversity of fungi and their roles (functional traits) in the ecosystem as well as any effects of various environmental gradients (such as nutrient availability, temperature or salinity) have unfortunately not been sufficiently researched to date. This is especially true for the interaction with artificial polymers.

In my work I am focussing on fungi on plastic waste in the Franzenheimer Bach. In addition to the existing biodiversity, I am also interested in the enzymatic potential of the fungi in its effect on surfaces of different types of plastic. To investigate these changes, I use ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, which uses infrared irradiation to determine the finest molecular changes on surfaces.