The Research Division Marine Ecology has five Research Units: Experimental Ecology - Benthos, Marine Evolutionary Ecology, Marine Natural Products Chemistry, Marine Symbioses andOcean EcoSystems Biology.
RD3 mission: Ocean’s biological diversity drives ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles. A deeper knowledge on existing diversity, the associated processes and the reactions to environmental perturbation is needed to project future changes, and to guide sustainable use of biological resources.
These are a few key questions that scientists of RD3 are addressing:
How will species interactions and marine communities be reorganized under multiple environmental changes, including invasion pressure and novel pathogens?
How will ecosystem biodiversity, functioning and services (for example, productivity, carbon sequestration, nutrient retention) change in response to perturbations and re-organization (due to range shifts /species introductions)? What are the relative contributions of evolutionary change, physiological plasticity and community restructuring to overall ecological response to global change?
What are novel marine resources in terms of genetic/genomic resources and marine organism and substances that can be utilized for human application? How can we sustainably use marine resources by understanding the biology of the exploited species in order to minimize effects on population sizes and biodiversity and the affected habitats?
Research groups
There are currently 16 research groups in the research area Marine Ecology. Follow the links to the respective research group pages.
Marine Evolutionary Ecology Prof. Dr. Thorsten Reusch
Marine Symbioses Prof. Dr. Ute Hentschel Humeida
Ecophysiology Prof. Dr. Frank Melzner
Stress Ecology Prof. Dr. Martin Wahl
Marine Natural Products Chemistry Prof. Dr. Deniz Tasdemir
Marine Microbial Ecology Prof. Dr. David Needham
Deep-sea biology Dr. Henk-Jan Hoving
Marine Ecological Genomics Prof. Reid Brennan
Marine Behavioural Ecology - Dr. Christopher Monk
Ecosystem Modelling Dr. Marco Scotti
Marine Macrophytes PD Dr. Florian Weinberger
Biodiversity Dr. Birte Matthiessen
GAME Dr. Mark Lenz
Invasion Ecology PD Dr. Elizabeta Briski
Coral Adaption to Extremes Dr. Marlene Wall
Microbial Oceanography & Biogeochemistry Dr. Kristin Bergauer
During an expedition to the Gulf of California, researchers observed a previously unknown species of squid carrying a cluster of exceptionally large eggs
Prof. Dr. Thorsten Reusch GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel Wischhofstr. 1-3 D-24148 Kiel Germany Room: 5-1.502 Phone: +49-431 - 600-4550 e-mail: treusch(at)geomar.de