Researcher (CSIC-UPF)
I am a microbial ecologist and group leader at the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF) in Barcelona and an Adjunct Professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science - University of Miami in Florida. I completed my bachelor’s and my PhD in Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology at the Institut de Ciències del Mar - CSIC (Barcelona), followed by postdoctoral research at the Universitat de Barcelona, the University of British Columbia (Vancouver), and back to the Institut de Ciències del Mar. In February 2019 I joined as Assistant Professor the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami and in February 2021 I joined the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva.
My research focuses on the study of host-associated microbes and the effect of global warming on the microbiomes of benthic and planktonic marine animals. Ongoing climate change and its effects on the environment, such as rising sea temperatures, have strong impacts on free-living marine microbial communities. However, the effects of global warming have not been properly studied on host-associated microbiomes. Microbiomes (both prokaryotic and eukaryotic) associated with animals have a strong influence on host evolution, physiology, and ecological functions. I study how environmental changes resulting from global warming affect the composition and function of the microbiomes in key members of the marine fauna and consequently how these changes affect the hosts. Currently, my study focuses on these impacts on corals, teleost fish, and zooplankton. To tackle this research topic, I use a combination of molecular biology such as metabarcoding and single-cell genomics, ecophysiology, and bioinformatics.
Selected articles:
- Bonacolta, A.M., Miravall, J., Gómez‐Gras, D., Ledoux, J., López‐Sendino, P., Garrabou, J., Massana, R., and Del Campo, J. (2023). Differential apicomplexan presence predicts thermal stress mortality in the Mediterranean coral Paramuricea clavata. Environmental Microbiology, 1462-2920.16548. DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.16548.
- Bonacolta, A.M., Weiler, B.A., Porta-Fitó, T., Sweet, M., Keeling, P., and del Campo, J. (2023). Beyond the Symbiodiniaceae: diversity and role of microeukaryotic coral symbionts. Coral Reefs. DOI: 10.1007/s00338-023-02352-0.
del Campo, J., Bass, D., and Keeling, P.J. (2020). The eukaryome: Diversity and role of microeukaryotic organisms associated with animal hosts. Funct Ecol 34, 2045–2054. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13490. - Kwong, W.K., del Campo, J., Mathur, V., Vermeij, M.J.A., and Keeling, P.J. (2019). A widespread coral-infecting apicomplexan with chlorophyll biosynthesis genes. Nature 568, 103–107. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1072-z.
- del Campo, J., Pons, M.J., Herranz, M., Wakeman, K.C., del Valle, J., Vermeij, M.J.A., Leander, B.S., and Keeling, P.J. (2019). Validation of a universal set of primers to study animal‐associated microeukaryotic communities. Environ Microbiol 21, 3855–3861. DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.14733.
- del Campo, J., Heger, T.J., Rodríguez-Martínez, R., Worden, A.Z., Richards, T.A., Massana, R., and Keeling, P.J. (2019). Assessing the Diversity and Distribution of Apicomplexans in Host and Free-Living Environments Using High-Throughput Amplicon Data and a Phylogenetically Informed Reference Framework. Front. Microbiol. 10, 2373. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.02373.
- del Campo, J., Kolisko, M., Boscaro, V., Santoferrara, L.F., Nenarokov, S., Massana, R., Guillou, L., Simpson, A., Berney, C., de Vargas, C., et al. (2018). EukRef: Phylogenetic curation of ribosomal RNA to enhance understanding of eukaryotic diversity and distribution. PLoS Biol 16, e2005849. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2005849.
- López-Escardó, D., Paps, J., de Vargas, C., Massana, R., Ruiz-Trillo, I., and del Campo, J. (2018). Metabarcoding analysis on European coastal samples reveals new molecular metazoan diversity. Sci Rep 8, 9106. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-27509-8.
- del Campo, J., Pombert, J.-F., Šlapeta, J., Larkum, A., and Keeling, P.J. (2017). The ‘other’ coral symbiont: Ostreobium diversity and distribution. ISME J 11, 296–299. DOI: 10.1038/ismej.2016.101.
- Keeling, P.J., and del Campo, J. del (2017). Marine Protists Are Not Just Big Bacteria. Current Biology 27, R541–R549. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.03.075.
Contact: jdelcampo@ibe.upf-csic.es
Twitter: @fonamental, @delCampoLab