Marion Meima-Franke

Ing. Marion Meima-Franke

Research assistant
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Visiting Address

Droevendaalsesteeg 10
6708 PB Wageningen

+31 (0) 317 47 34 00

The Netherlands

About

Marion is a ME research technician. In March 2000, she joined the NIOO-KNAW, where she worked on the Dynatox project. Since 2003, she has worked as a lab assistant for Dr. P.L.E. Bodelier on a variety of projects involving methane oxidizing bacteria.

Biography

Ing. Marion Meima-Franke (1969) graduated in 1993 as a research technician in medical biochemistry at the Hogeschool Enschede.

She worked for 4 years in two different jobs at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. In her first job, she tried to accelerate the ripening time of cheese, with the help of genetically modified strains. The second job (in collaboration with the Academic Hospital of Groningen) dealt with a cardiac disease called atrial fibrillation (AF).

After Groningen, she worked for two years as a research technician at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. Here, she worked on two projects dealing with expression of genes involved in C1 metabolism in 1) pmmo genes, and 2) AM1 (mox genes).

In March 2000, she joined the NIOO-KNAW-Centre for Limnology, where she worked together with Dr. Ingmar Janse and Dr. Gabriƫl Zwart on the Dynatox project. This project aimed to provide insight into dynamics and toxin production of potentially toxic cyanobacteria in a few Dutch lakes as well as to investigate conditions that influence growth and toxin production.

SInce 2003, she has worked as a lab assistant for Dr. P.L.E. Bodelier on a variety of projects involving methane oxidizing bacteria.

In 2017 the NIOO invested in a new flowsorter, the BD Influx. She is trained to use this flowsorter on behalf of her departement Microbial Ecology.

Research groups

Projects & collaborations

Projects

  • SmartResidue

    Project 2019–2023
    This project will investigate residue-stimulated atmospheric methane oxidation, and aims to elucidate its occurrence in field conditions, responsible microorganisms, underlying mechanisms and controlling factors.
    Sampling compost
  • Volatile mediated interactions between methanotrophs and heterotrophs

    Project 2016–Present
    Methanotrophic bacteria are crucial in the regulation of methane concentration in the atmosphere and therefore for regulating our climate.
    Approaches for studying
  • Clever Cover cropping. Synergistic Mixtures for Sustainable Soils

    Project 2015–2020
    Since recently, Dutch farmers are required to grow cover crops in mixtures of at least two plant species.
    In the Clever Cropping Project we investigated whether mixtures of cover crops have beneficial effects on soil microbiology and associated functions.
    In long-term field experiments and laboratory incubations, we assessed emissions of greenhouse gasses and the diversity, abundance, and activity of microbial groups involved in environmentally relevant processes.
    While in laboratory incubations we could clearly find increased beneficial microbial functioning associated with mixtures of cover crop residues, we could not observe this in a 5-year field experiment.
    Overall, the use of cover crop mixtures did not have significant beneficial effects on soil microbial functioning but also no negative effects on for example greenhouse gas emissions.
    Gas flux measurements in Cover crops