Prof. Kowalchuk heads the Ecology and Biodiversity research group at Utrecht University, which focuses on the development, maintenance and functioning of biodiversity, as determined by ecological processes and interactions with atmosphere, water and soil. His own multifaceted research program is centered around environmental and rhizosphere microbiology in the context of global change. Specific research foci include environmental genomics of ecologically relevant micro-organisms, rhizosphere ecology, molecular community analysis of bacterial and fungal communities, microbial diversity in the rhizosphere, interactions between aboveground and belowground biota, effects of genetically modified plants on soil communities, and roles of plant-microbe interactions in C and N cycling. Much of this work is related to the development and application of novel molecular and genomics approaches to gain insight not only into the diversity, but also the functions, of the largely unexplored soil microbial communities. Via his personal Vici grant “Crossing the frontiers of microbial ecology”, research is conducted to help unravel the fundamental patterns of microbial diversity, by applying emerging genomics toolboxes to the study of microbial diversity at scales from the individual microbe to the globe. In various other projects, more strategic approaches are taken to examine the role of soil microorganisms in a changing world and their potential in help facilitate the biobased economy. Prof. Kowalchuk formerly held a professor’s chair at the Free University of Amsterdam within the Department of Ecological Science, titled Plant-Microbe Interactions and is a guest member of the Microbial Ecology Department of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology. He is a founding editor and co-editor-in-chief of the flagship journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology, The ISME Journal, launched in 2007 by The Nature Publishing Group. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the Molecular Microbial Ecology Manual and sits on the editor boards of the journals Environmental Microbiology, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, FEMS Microbiology Ecology, and The Journal of Genomic Standards.
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