Dr. K Jacobs
Dr. Karin Jacobs is a microbial ecologist that specialises in taxonomy of ascomycetes fungi and the role that these organisms play in the environment.
In her research group there are currently a number of projects dealing with various aspects of environmental microbiology. The main theme of the group is to investigate the diversity and structure of microbial communities in particularly fynbos areas. These areas are unique to the Western Cape and house large numbers of endemic plants. This is also true for microbial communities which appear to be highly diverse and many species are unique to this area. Other projects investigate the distribution patterns of these communities over different vegetation and temperature gradients in arid regions. Furtermore, the group aim to determine how these populations react to changes in the environment and how they relate to the above ground plants. The impact of agriculture on these communities and the effect of different management practices is the focus of a number of applied projects in the group.
The environmental projects are complimented by number of taxonomy related projects. These include studies on the genera Penicillium, Mucor and Fusarium. Penicillium species are abundant in soils and a number of these strains are also screened for unique enzymes. At this stage it appears that the Fynbos region may also be a hotspot for Penicillium diversity with over a 100 species isolated from this region. A project is already underway to characterise and described these and will include a key to all Penicillium species isolated from this region.
