Attila Szabò

I am a microbial ecologist and environmental scientist whose current research focuses inland saline aquatic systems, especially soda lakes, from their community composition to the biogeochemical and microbial processes driving gas fluxes in these waters. My work integrates field measurements, microbial ecology, and metagenomics to uncover how microbial communities regulate carbon, nitrogen and sulfur cycling under extreme environmental conditions.

My research bridges microbiology, ecology, limnology and applied environmental science, combining large-scale field campaigns with advanced molecular and computational approaches. I am particularly interested in how salinity, ionic composition, and desiccations shape microbial community structure and metabolic potential, and how these factors influence the emission and mitigation of greenhouse gases such as CO2, CH4, and N2O.

Ongoing projects:

As project leader

• FLAME: Gas fluxes from alkaline lakes and the underlying microbial processes, a FORMAS Career Grant for Early-career Researchers. The project aims to comprehensively understand gas exchange in saline-alkaline aquatic systems, in response to increasing salinity and desiccation frequency, while elucidate the pivotal role of the microbiome in shaping these processes. 2025-2028.

As co-applicant

• BEDDCAPD: Beyond ´Everywhere´: Disentangling Dispersal Constraints of Aquatic Planktonic Diversity, a project about microbial and planctonic diversity supported by VR Research project grant within natural and engineering sciences. 2025-2028.

PhD Students

• Merjan Koşucu – "Dispersal Constraints and Their Role in Shaping Inland Aquatic Biodiversity." (SLU, 2025–, co-supervisor).
• Sofia Amanda Abad-Sojos – "The microbiome's role in the nitrogen cycling in soda lakes." (ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 2022 – , co-supervisor).
• Zsuzsanna Márton – "Temporal dynamics of planktonic microeukaryotes and bacteria in shallow soda lakes of the Carpathian Basin". (ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 2017 – 2023, external supervisor)

• Anda D, Felföldi T, Márton Z, Szuróczki S, Márialigeti K, Tóth VR, Szabó A. “Assessment of bacterioplankton community structure in relation to macrophyte cover in shallow lakes of the Carpathian Basin (Central Europe).” (2025) http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5580660.
• Soares RR, Varg JE, Szabó A, Kluge M, Petrini F, Psallida M, Olszewski P, Danai VN, Owusu-Agyeman I, Perez-Zabaleta M, Cetecioglu Z, Naseem U, Malmberg M, Székely AJ. (2025). Hyperplex PCR enables highly multiplexed analysis of point mutations in wastewater. Water Research, 123154.
• Szabó A, Székely AJ, Boros E, Márton Z, Csitári B, Barteneva NS, Anda D, Dobosy P, Eiler A, Bertilsson S, Felföldi, T. 2024. A matter of salt: global assessment of the effect of salt ionic composition as a driver of aquatic bacterial diversity. bioRxiv, 2024-03.
• Márton Z, Csitári B, Felföldi T, Jordán F, Hidas A, Székely AJ & Szabó A. 2023. Contrasting Response of Microeukaryotic and Bacterial Communities to the Interplay of Seasonality and Stochastic Events in Shallow Soda Lakes. FEMS Microbiology Ecology fiad095.
• Barta B, Szabó A, Szabó B, Ptacnik R, Vad CF, Horváth Z. 2023. How pondscapes function: connectivity matters for biodiversity even across small spatial scales in aquatic metacommunities. Ecography, e06960.
• Szabó B, Szabó A, Vad CF, Boros E, Lukić D, Ptacnik R, Márton Z, Horváth Z. 2022. Microbial stowaways – waterbirds as dispersal vectors of aquatic pro- and microeukaryotic communities. Journal of Biogeography 10.1111/jbi.14381
• Szabó A, Korponai K, Somogyi B, Vajna B, Vörös L, Horváth Z, Boros E, Tugyi N, Márialigeti K, Felföldi T. 2020. Grazing pressure-induced shift in planktonic bacterial communities with the dominance of acIII-A1 actinobacterial lineage in soda pans, Scientific Reports 10:19871
• Anda D, Szabó A, Kovács-Bodor P, Makk J, Felföldi T, Ács É, Mádli-Szőnyi J, Borsodi AK. 2020. In situ modelling of biofilm formation in a quasi-stagnant water of a hydrothermal spring cave. Scientific Reports 10:1-9
• Szuróczki S, Szabó A, Korponai K, Felföldi T, Somogyi B, Márialigeti K, Tóth E. 2020. The effect of reed coverage on prokaryotic community composition and metabolism in a large shallow soda lake (Neusiedler See/Lake Fertő) FEMS Microbiology Ecology 96:fiaa159
• Aszalós JM, Szabó A, Felföldi T, Jurecska L, Nagy B, Borsodi AK. 2020. Effects of active volcanism on bacterial communities in the highest altitude crater lake of Ojos del Salado (Dry Andes, Atacama). Astrobiology 20:741-753
• Szabó A, Korponai K, Kerepesi Cs, Somogyi B, Vörös L, Bartha D, Márialigeti K, Felföldi T. 2017. Soda pans of the Pannonian steppe harbor unique bacterial communities adapted to multiple extreme conditions. Extremophiles 21: 639-649