I discovered my passion for microbial ecology during my undergraduate studies, in Brazil, where I worked on nitrogen- fixing bacteria associated with sugarcane and developed that further during my PhD (Leiden University, NL, 2005) and my 3 year postdoc in Lyon, France. Since 2008 I am working at the University of Groningen, where I initiated a very enthusiastic, fun, diverse and multidisciplinary group that combines ecological and evolutionary theories to understand how microbial communities are formed and how they impact their environment, generating knowledge relevant for both fundamental and applied research.