Research topics
- Soil ecology
- Soil biodiversity includes all belowground organisms that are functioning in complex food webs fuelled by dead plant matter and living plant roots. The number of species in soil by far exceeds aboveground diversity, but the complex community living below our feed is still a widely neglected field of research. This is a serious shortcoming, since soil biota carry out an enormous range of functions and is pivotal for delivering food, fiber and biofuels and carbon storage. Moreover, soil biodiversity affects the organisms living on the other side of the soil interface in a multitude of ways, either through nutrient supply or as herbivores, pathogens, and symbionts.
- Functional ecology
- Research in functional ecology investigates the impact of species or species communities for ecosystems processes. Therefore, it covers a broad range of scientific topics that relate to specific mechanisms (e.g. effect of resource availability on reproduction success), rules in community ecology (e.g. predator-prey interactions) and basic relationships (e.g. linking biodiversity to ecosystem functions). Studies conducted in our group include correlative studies or manipulative experiments in the laboratory or field and provide a detailed understanding of mechanisms and patterns in ecology.
- Landscape ecology
- Many ecological processes act simultaneously at different spatial scales: from local habitat to large-scale landscape context. The research focus ‘landscape ecology’ studies the effects of landscape composition and configuration pattern on patterns of faunal biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions.
- Limnology
- Limnology is the science of inland waters. Thus it is the branch of ecology which considers lakes, running waters and groundwater. The research in our working group is focussed on the role of microorganisms in the flow of matter and energy in streams and rivers, but we are working also on groundwater environments. Bacteria and other microorganisms in these environments are regarded not only as the main mineralisers of organic matter but also as important food resource for higher trophic levels.