Nico Boon

Our research has focused on the microbial ecology of soil, aquifer, aquaculture systems, drinking water, microbial fuel cells, gastrointestinal ecosystems and activated sludge systems. The areas of interests have been the development of molecular methods for the qualitative and quantitative description of microorganisms and investigations of microbial processes in carbon and nitrogen cycling, novel bioaugmentation strategies for xenobiotics and the bioprecipitation and application of catalytic particles. Recently, the research interests are focussed on the development of new microbial ecological theories to link the microbial community structure to functionality. The central theme of this research is to understand of the composition, functionality and the limits under which a microbial community can (optimally) perform. This strategy is called Microbial Resource Management (MRM).