Publications by Massimo Bourquin

Glacier-fed stream diatoms (Bacillariophyta) from the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda, with the description of one new species from the genus Neidium

Leïla Ezzat, Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Massimo Bourquin, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

Informa UK Limited2025

Predicting climate-change impacts on the global glacier-fed stream microbiome

Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Matteo Tolosano, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Andrew Lean Robison

The shrinkage of glaciers and the vanishing of glacier-fed streams (GFSs) are emblematic of climate change. However, forecasts of how GFS microbiome structure and function will change under projected climate change scenarios are lacking. Combining 2,333 pr ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2025

Glacier influence shapes the genomic architecture of the downstream aquatic microbiome

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Massimo Bourquin, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

The factors and processes that shape microbial genomes and determine the success of microbes in different environments have long attracted scientific interest. Here, leveraging 2855 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) sampled by the Vanishing Glacier Proje ...

Oxford University Press (OUP)2025

Mapping the metagenomic diversity of the multi-kingdom glacier-fed stream microbiome

Vincent Henri De Staercke, Hannes Markus Peter, Matteo Tolosano, Massimo Bourquin, Martina Andrea Schön, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

Glacier-fed streams (GFS) feature among Earth’s most extreme aquatic ecosystems marked by pronounced oligotrophy and environmental fluctuations. Microorganisms mainly organize in biofilms within them, but how they cope with such conditions is unknown. Here ...

2025

Diversity and biogeography of the bacterial microbiome in glacier-fed streams

Nicola Deluigi, Leïla Ezzat, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Matteo Tolosano, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Martina Andrea Schön, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Florian Baier

The rapid melting of mountain glaciers and the vanishing of their streams is emblematic of climate change1,2. Glacier-fed streams (GFSs) are cold, oligotrophic and unstable ecosystems in which life is dominated by microbial biofilms2,3. However, current kn ...

2025

Global emergent responses of stream microbial metabolism to glacier shrinkage

Nicola Deluigi, Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Massimo Bourquin

Most cryospheric ecosystems are energy limited. How their energetics will respond to climate change remains largely unknown. This is particularly true for glacier-fed streams, which interface with the cryosphere and initiate some of Earth's largest river s ...

Nature Portfolio2024

The microbial genomics of glacier-fed streams: adaptations to an extreme ecosystem

Massimo Bourquin

Glacier-fed streams are the cold, ultra-oligotrophic, and unstable streams that are fed by glacial meltwater. Despite these extreme conditions, they harbour a diverse and abundant microbial diversity that develops into biofilms, covering the boulders and s ...

EPFL2024

Cross-domain interactions confer stability to benthic biofilms in proglacial streams

Leïla Ezzat, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Jade Brandani, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

Cross-domain interactions are an integral part of the success of biofilms in natural environments but remain poorly understood. Here, we describe cross-domain interactions in stream biofilms draining proglacial floodplains in the Swiss Alps. These streams, ...

2023

Homogeneous Environmental Selection Structures the Bacterial Communities of Benthic Biofilms in Proglacial Floodplain Streams

Leïla Ezzat, Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Jade Brandani, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

Streams draining proglacial floodplains harbor benthic biofilms comprised of diverse microbial communities. These high-mountain ecosystems are rapidly changing with climate warming, and it is therefore critical to better understand the mechanisms underlyin ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2023

Glacier-Fed Stream Biofilms Harbor Diverse Resistomes and Biosynthetic Gene Clusters

Leïla Ezzat, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Matteo Tolosano, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

Antimicrobial resistance is an omnipresent phenomenon in the anthropogenically influenced ecosystems. However, its role in shaping microbial community dynamics in pristine environments is relatively unknown. ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2023

The dark side of the moon: first insights into the microbiome structure and function of one of the last glacier-fed streams in Africa

Leïla Ezzat, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Matteo Tolosano, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Massimo Bourquin, Martina Andrea Schön, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

The glaciers on Africa's 'Mountains of the Moon' (Rwenzori National Park, Uganda) are predicted to disappear within the next decades owing to climate change. Consequently, the glacier-fed streams (GFSs) that drain them will vanish, along with their residen ...

ROYAL SOC2023

Spatial patterns of benthic biofilm diversity among streams draining proglacial floodplains

Leïla Ezzat, Matteo Roncoroni, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Jade Brandani, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

Glacier shrinkage opens new proglacial terrain with pronounced environmental gradients along longitudinal and lateral chronosequences. Despite the environmental harshness of the streams that drain glacier forelands, their benthic biofilms can harbor astoni ...

Frontiers Media SA2022

Benthic Biofilms in Glacier-Fed Streams from Scandinavia to the Himalayas Host Distinct Bacterial Communities Compared with the Streamwater

Leïla Ezzat, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Emmy Marie Oppliger, Jade Brandani, Matteo Tolosano, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Martina Andrea Schön, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Virginia Tadei

Microbial life in glacier-fed streams (GFSs) is dominated by benthic biofilms which fulfill critical ecosystem processes. However, it remains unclear how the bacterial communities of these biofilms assemble in stream ecosystems characterized by rapid turno ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2022

The microbiome of cryospheric ecosystems

Leïla Ezzat, Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

The cryosphere includes those parts of Earth where water or soil is frozen, such as snow, ice, glaciers and permafrost soils. Here, the authors present a global inventory of cryospheric microbial communities and their genetic repertoires. ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Glacier shrinkage will accelerate downstream decomposition of organic matter and alters microbiome structure and function

Nicola Deluigi, Leïla Ezzat, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Jade Brandani, Matteo Tolosano, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Martina Andrea Schön, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

The shrinking of glaciers is among the most iconic consequences of climate change. Despite this, the downstream consequences for ecosystem processes and related microbiome structure and function remain poorly understood. Here, using a space-for-time substi ...

Wiley2022

Genomic and metabolic adaptations of biofilms to ecological windows of opportunity in glacier-fed streams

Leïla Ezzat, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Matteo Tolosano, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Martina Andrea Schön, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

In glacier-fed streams, ecological windows of opportunity allow complex microbial biofilms to develop and transiently form the basis of the food web, thereby controlling key ecosystem processes. Using metagenome-assembled genomes, we unravel strategies tha ...

Springer2022

Microdiversity characterizes prevalent phylogenetic clades in the glacier-fed stream microbiome

Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Jade Brandani, Matteo Tolosano, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Susheel Bhanu Busi

Glacier-fed streams (GFSs) are extreme and rapidly vanishing ecosystems, and yet they harbor diverse microbial communities. Although our understanding of the GFS microbiome has recently increased, we do not know which microbial clades are ecologically succ ...

SPRINGERNATURE2022

Benchmarking protocols for the metagenomic analysis of stream biofilm viromes

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Jade Brandani, Meriem Bekliz, Massimo Bourquin

Viruses drive microbial diversity, function and evolution and influence important biogeochemical cycles in aquatic ecosystems. Despite their relevance, we currently lack an understanding of their potential impacts on stream biofilm structure and function. ...

PeerJ2019