The Ecology Research Group focuses on the ecology and evolution of microbial communities. One research emphasis is on the emergence of cooperation through the mutual exchange of metabolites among different bacterial strains, as well as the co-evolutionary consequences that arise for the interacting strains as a result of this. Additionally, aspects of bacterial multicellularity and the factors determining the stability of microbial interaction networks are investigated. These questions are addressed through a combination of theoretical and experimental approaches at various levels of biological organization, contributing to a fundamental mechanistic understanding of the phenomena under investigation.

Within the framework of FZ IUSF, there are opportunities for theoretical modeling of ecological interactions through differential equations or individual-based modeling. Furthermore, there is the possibility to conduct experiments with bacterial model systems to answer specific fundamental questions.