Willkommen in Deutschland: wie internationale Studierende den Hochschulstandort Deutschland wahrnehmen

Warum entscheidet sich ein ausländischer Studierender oder Doktorand für eine deutsche Hochschule? Um diese Frage zu beantworten wurden rund 50.000 international mobile Studieninteressierte im In- und Ausland im Auftrag des Konsortiums für internationales Hochschulmarketing (GATE-Germany) befragt. In drei Befragungen wurde ermittelt, welche Faktoren für die Wahl einer deutschen Hochschule entscheidend waren und ob die Erwartungen erfüllt wurden. Darüber hinaus informiert die Publikation über Hindernisse, die einem weiteren Verbleib der Studierenden in Deutschland entgegenstanden. Studieninteressierte im Ausland wurden außerdem befragt, wie sie den Hochschulstandort Deutschland wahrnehmen. Die Ergebnisse dieser Befragungen bilden die Grundlage für eine zielgruppenadäquate Weiterentwicklung der Serviceangebote deutscher Hochschulen.Why does a foreign student or doctoral student decide to study at a German University? In order to answer this question approximately 50,000 internationally mobile prospective students at home and abroad were interviewed on behalf of the Konsortium für internationales Hochschulmarketing (GATE-Germany, Consortium for international University marketing). With the help of three surveys it was determined which factors are important for the choice of a German University and whether the expectations were met. Furthermore, the publication provides information about challenges, which impeded the further stay of students in Germany. Prospective students abroad were also asked about their perceptions relating to the University location Germany. The results of these interviews provide the basis for an adequate target-group orientated development of service provisions at German Universities

Symbiosis in the microbial world: from ecology to genome evolution

© 2018. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. The concept of symbiosis – defined in 1879 by de Bary as ‘the living together of unlike organisms’ – has a rich and convoluted history in biology. In part, because it questioned the concept of the individual, symbiosis fell largely outside mainstream science and has traditionally received less attention than other research disciplines. This is gradually changing. In nature organisms do not live in isolation but rather interact with, and are impacted by, diverse beings throughout their life histories. Symbiosis is now recognized as a central driver of evolution across the entire tree of life, including, for example, bacterial endosymbionts that provide insects with vital nutrients and the mitochondria that power our own cells. Symbioses between microbes and their multicellular hosts also underpin the ecological success of some of the most productive ecosystems on the planet, including hydrothermal vents and coral reefs. In November 2017, scientists working in fields spanning the life sciences came together at a Company of Biologists’ workshop to discuss the origin, maintenance, and long-term implications of symbiosis from the complementary perspectives of cell biology, ecology, evolution and genomics, taking into account both model and non-model organisms. Here, we provide a brief synthesis of the fruitful discussions that transpired

High-throughput sequencing of Astrammina rara: Sampling the giant genome of a giant foraminiferan protist

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Foraminiferan protists, which are significant players in most marine ecosystems, are also genetic innovators, harboring unique modifications to proteins that make up the basic eukaryotic cell machinery. Despite their ecological and evolutionary importance, foraminiferan genomes are poorly understood due to the extreme sequence divergence of many genes and the difficulty of obtaining pure samples: exogenous DNA from ingested food or ecto/endo symbionts often vastly exceed the amount of "native" DNA, and foraminiferans cannot be cultured axenically. Few foraminiferal genes have been sequenced from genomic material, although partial sequences of coding regions have been determined by EST studies and mass spectroscopy. The lack of genomic data has impeded evolutionary and cell-biology studies and has also hindered our ability to test ecological hypotheses using genetic tools.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>454 sequence analysis was performed on a library derived from whole genome amplification of microdissected nuclei of the Antarctic foraminiferan <it>Astrammina rara</it>. Xenogenomic sequence, which was shown not to be of eukaryotic origin, represented only 12% of the sample. The first foraminiferal examples of important classes of genes, such as tRNA genes, are reported, and we present evidence that sequences of mitochondrial origin have been translocated to the nucleus. The recovery of a 3' UTR and downstream sequence from an actin gene suggests that foraminiferal mRNA processing may have some unusual features. Finally, the presence of a co-purified bacterial genome in the library also permitted the first calculation of the size of a foraminiferal genome by molecular methods, and statistical analysis of sequence from different genomic sources indicates that low-complexity tracts of the genome may be endoreplicated in some stages of the foraminiferal life cycle.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These data provide the first window into genomic organization and genetic control in these organisms, and also complement and expands upon information about foraminiferal genes based on EST projects. The genomic data obtained are informative for environmental and cell-biological studies, and will also be useful for efforts to understand relationships between foraminiferans and other protists.</p