Ingrid Sassenhagen

I am fascinated by phytoplankton due to its important role as primary producers at the bottom of aquatic food webs. Additionally, this group of organisms contains an astonishing high genetic and functional diversity. Thus, two cells can look very similar to each other, but they might belong to very distant branches in the tree of life, have evolved in very different ways and possess very distinct metabolic abilities. Several species can, for example, be very toxic and pose a threat to humans.

since 2020: Olle Engkvists Stiftelse fellowship at Limnology, EBC, Uppsala University, Sweden

2018 & 2019: Postdoctoral Researcher at Laboratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences, Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, France

2015-2017: Postdoctoral Researcher at Marine Science Institute, University of Texas at Austin, USA

2011-2015: PhD student at Aquatic Ecology, Department of Biology, Lund University, Sweden

2008 & 2009: Erasmus exchange at Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, Master School of Life and Earth Science, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2005-2010: Biology studies at Institute of Bioscience, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, University of Rostock, Germany

In my current project funded by the Olle Engkvist foundation, I will identify unicellular, eukaryotic parasites associated with bloom-forming phytoplankton species and investigate, if these infections contribute to the decline of the blooms. Furthermore, I will assess if host-parasite relationships are consistent across different lakes and over several years.