Erik Teutloff

Contact / Address


Erik Teutloff
PhD Student

Department of Soil Ecology
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
Theodor-Lieser-Strasse 4 | D-06120 Halle/Saale
Germany

Erik Teutloff

Research Interests

I'm an early career scientist and PhD student in the department of Soil Ecology working for Prof. Mika Tarkka. I'm especially interested in the interactions between plants, bacteria, and fungi and their abiotic environment. Prior to joining UFZ, my research dealt with the leaf microbiome of Arabidopsis thaliana and its interaction with the fungal pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, leveraging 16S metabarcoding, fluorescence microscopy, and phytohormone analysis.

A main focus of mine has been exploring microbial community assembly as well as the ecological functions provided to plant hosts by their microbiota with a special lens on plant resilience against leaf pathogens. However, as I started to understand the importance of the soil as a main source for plant microbial inocula, I redirected my research focus below the ground – back to the roots. Thus, I joined the UFZ Halle in November 2023 as a part of the project the DFG- and SNF-funded research unit PhytOakmeter.



Research Projects

PhytOakmeter SP5a "Adaptation and acclimation of the clonal oak’s ectomycorrhizal fungi to biotic and abiotic environmental factors"

https://www.uni-marburg.de/en/fb17/phytoakmeter/phytoakmeter-subprojecs/copy_of_project-area-c

Currently, I'm a member of subproject 5 "Ectomycorrhiza" of the PhytOakmeter team. The overarching goal is to study the adaptation and acclimation of the oak holobiont to biotic and abiotic factors. The clonal oak (Quercus robur L. DF159) serves as a representative for European forest trees to improve our understanding of the results of climate change on our forests. Considering the pendunculate oak from a holobiont perspective, the individual subprojects examine responses of the plant host and its associated microbiota to different climatic and soil conditions. For this purpose, former agricultural sites and forest plots from Southern France, and Germany to Finland are utilized, where clonal oaks have been growing for more than 9 years. Further, a specific focus was placed on holobiont drought responses, drought memory, and their interactions with herbivory responses, which will be investigated in controlled greenhouse experiments.

Subproject 5a is led by Prof. Mika Tarkka und Prof. Martina Peter and deals with the role of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungal communities during the adaption and acclimation of the clonal oak. I combine a microscopy-based survey of ECM morphotypes with an analysis of extracellular enzyme activity and ITS2 Sanger sequencing of the very same root tips to study ecosystem functions provided by abundant ECM community members. For an example of morphotypic analysis view the image below.

Ectomycorrhizal root tips on oak - Morphotypes with different distance exploration types

I supplement this analysis with molecular methods for measuring microbial diversity (ITS2 and 16S metabarcoding) to provide further insight the impact of climatic and soil factors into community assembly and thereby ecological services available to the plant host. This type of knowledge is going to aid in projecting the fate of forest trees in a changing climate, and – for example – coordinating reforestation efforts of former agricultural sites and protecting our existing forests alike.


The role of ECM fungi and fungal root endophytes of the clonal oak in plant growth promotion and stress resilience

As a personal side project, I have been collecting dozens of fungal isolates from oak roots across plot from the European Transect and am planning to test their plant-growth enhancing capabilities on the clonal oak. This way, I hope to identify potential future key players in helping enhance tree resilience against extreme weather events like drought.

6 members of a fungal isolate library of the clonal oak

CV / Scientific Career

since October 2023

PhD student

Helmholtz-Center for Environmental Research - UFZ in Halle (Saale), Soil Ecology department

Project: "Adaptation and acclimation of the clonal oak’s ectomycorrhizal fungi to biotic and abiotic environmental factors"

March 2023 to October 2023

Research Associate

Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Institute of Microbiology: Plant-Microbiosis junior research group

Project: Investigation of the early bacterial colonization of the Arabidopsis thaliana phyllosphere from soil

October 2020 to February 2023

M. Sc. Microbiology

Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Institute of Microbiology: Plant-Microbiosis junior research group

Master's thesis: "Balance in plant bacterial recruitment affects resilience to fungal invasion of the phyllosphere"

October 2017 to October 2020

B. Sc. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Matthias-Schleiden-Institute of Plant Physiology, Molecular Botany

Bachelor's thesis: "Analysis of systemic jasmonic acid signaling via Arabidopsis thaliana reporter lines"


Conference Contributions

Posters

September 2023:

Erik Teutloff, Jisna Jose, Rayko Halitschke, Aurélie Jost, Patrick Then, Matthew Agler (2023), "Balance in plant bacterial recruitment affects resilience to fungal invasion of the phyllosphere", VAAM 2023 (Vereinigung für Allgemeine und Angewandte Mikrobiologie), Göttingen (Germany)

April 2023:

Erik Teutloff, Jisna Jose, Rayko Halitschke, Aurélie Jost, Patrick Then, Matthew Agler (2023), "Balance in plant bacterial recruitment affects resilience to fungal invasion of the phyllosphere", Symposium: Bridging Phyllosphere and Rhizosphere Research, Jena (Germany)