Dr. Robin Tecon
I am a microbiologist with a special interest in bacteria colonizing natural habitats. Bacteria can be found everywhere in the environment: in soil, in fresh and marine water, or in association with plants and animals. Today, microscopy techniques allow us to visualize and study bacteria at their own scale—the microscale—, and I use these techniques in microbial ecology to understand how it is to live a microbe’s life! In particular, I’m interested in the variability among individuals in bacterial populations, and in how the interplay of biological and physico-chemical constraints shapes the ecology of bacteria.
- My profile at Web of Science: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-2906-2011
- My profile at Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robin_Tecon
- My microbiology blog: http://ofbacteriaandmen.blogspot.ch/
- My CV
- My list of publications with links
Current research
Origins and maintenance of microbial diversity in soil
I participate in the European Research Council (ERC) project SoilLife, led by Prof. Dani Or. This project aims at understanding what mechanisms shape the huge microbial diversity that can be observed in terrestrial environments. SoilLife represents an exciting interdisciplinary effort between environmental microbiology and soil physics. In this project, I use my expertise in bacteriology and microscopy to help design and perform experiments in which bacteria colonize unsaturated surfaces. This experimental work is done in parallel to computer modelling, and a strong emphasis is put on promoting information feedback between the experimental and modelling parts of SoilLife. For more details see http://www.step.ethz.ch/research/active-projects/microbial-life-in-porous-media/erc-advanced-grant-soillife.html.
Designing microbial landscapes
I participate to the SystemsX.ch project MicroscapesX, a collaboration between Swiss research groups from ETH Zurich, University of Lausanne, EPF Lausanne, and Lausanne Hospital (CHUV). In this project, which aims at engineering functional microbial assemblages, I help develop experimental models of bacterial consortia that can be studied in space and time. For more details see http://www.step.ethz.ch/research/active-projects/microbial-life-in-porous-media/microscapesx.html.
Past research
Bacterial colonization of plant leaves
Netherlands Institute of Ecology and University of California, Davis, USA
Reporter bacteria for measuring the availability of organic contaminants
University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Download my PhD thesis in pdf: http://my.unil.ch/serval/document/BIB_144C279A288C.pdf