Research
Research
In its research and teaching, the Department of Government primarily focuses on comparative and Austrian politics. Its research is concerned with political behaviour, political actors, such as political parties and politicians, political institutions, the processes governed by these institutions, as well as their outcomes. It includes work on political participation, voting behaviour, parties and party competition, coalition politics and Austrian politics in general and is mostly based on rationalist and behavioural approaches.
Our goal is to conduct high-level, internationally competitive research in the area of Comparative Politics with the collaboration of international project partners and research networks. At the Faculty of Social Sciences the department is mainly engaged in the key research area ''Political Competition and Communication: Democratic Representation in Changing Societies'.
The department’s approach places it in the discipline’s empirical-analytical core and is mostly based on quantitative social science methods. To map empirical phenomena accurately, researcher in the department focus on the continuous development of survey design, as well as on the analysis of empirical data by applying the best suited statistical model. The department aims to achieve the best work on Austrian politics and to make important contributions to the international academic literature on Comparative Government and Politics.
An overview of current publications and activities at the department can be found below and on the personal websites of our team.
Publications
Simultaneous measurement of metabolic activity and membrane integrity in marine bacterioplankton determined by confocal laser-scanning microscopy
- Author(s)
- Heidemarie Pirker, Clemens Pausz, Karen E. Stoderegger, Gerhard J. Herndl
- Abstract
We simultaneously assessed the metabolic activity and viability of individual bacterioplankton cells in the coastal and open North Sea. Three different techniques were applied to determine cell features related to the physiological status of the cell. SYBR Green I was used to estimate the nucleic acid content of the cell. Propidium iodide (PI) stains cells with a compromised cell membrane, commonly interpreted as indicative of dead cells. Microautoradiography (MA) with radiolabeled glucose and leucine was applied to indicate metabolically active cells. The relative abundance of metabolically active cells determined by MA was usually <20% of the total abundance of bacteria. In contrast, the percentage of PI-positive cells in the total bacterial community was generally high (∼80 %). However, the overwhelming majority (97 %) of cells taking up glucose and leucine were also PI-positive. Apparently, the uptake of radiolabeled substrate is related to PI accumulation in cells, indicating that PI is not a reliable stain to indicate non-active or dead bacteria. We suggest that several methods should be combined to assess the physiological status of individual cells in natural bacterioplankton communities.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government, Functional and Evolutionary Ecology
- External organisation(s)
- Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
- Journal
- Aquatic Microbial Ecology
- Volume
- 39
- Pages
- 225-233
- No. of pages
- 9
- ISSN
- 0948-3055
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3354/ame039225
- Publication date
- 06-2005
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 106021 Marine biology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Aquatic Science
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 14 - Life Below Water
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/a265d323-fa43-45f3-b933-50a33d738fd8