Study programmes

Protistology is an interdisciplinary biological discipline on the border of microbiology, botany, zoology, and parasitology focusing on protists, i.e. unicellular eukaryotic microorganisms. The study program of protistology is focused on educating researchers and application-oriented experts in the areas of evolution, diversity, and ecology of protists. Specific characteristics of protist organisms (microscopic size, frequent asexuality, small phenotypic differentiation) predetermine a distinctly different methodological and conceptual range of protistology compared to other fields of organismal biology such as botany or zoology. The study of protists is also inseparably connected to the research of the origins of eukaryotic evolution. Protistological research is currently based on a combination of modern laboratory methods such as methods of molecular biology and phylogenetics, cultivation techniques, electron and confocal microscopy, and so on. Field research, though, plays an important role as well. As part of the study program, evolutionary and ecological diploma projects studying heterotrophic and autotrophic protists, their populations, and communities in nature and their interactions with other organisms will be conducted.