The RF Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health focuses on understanding and managing the World´s species and ecosystems under global change. The research activity (RA) Medical Biodiversity contributes to the global One Health initiative by investigating vector-borne diseases and parasitology. The RA Long-term Ecosystem Dynamics represents a “traditional” research activity with typical long-term monitoring aspects and a key competence in long-term data analyses.
For decades, we have run monitoring projects in marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems and are strongly embedded in international networks like LTER and GEOBON. The RA Biodiversity Conservation focuses on developing new methods, assessments tools and management recommendations. It is combining our nature conservation projects in marine, terrestrial and limnic environments.
Biodiversity and Climate
The three research activities of RF Biodiversity and Climate, i.e. Evolution and Climate, Biodiversity Dynamics and Climate, and Adaptation and Climate represent the different time scales over which we analyse how biodiversity interacts with its environment from Earth’s geologic history to the impact of our industrialized global society. These research activities complement the RA Ecosystem services and climate, which, in cooperation with the Institut für sozial-ökologischeForschung (ISOE), studies the social-ecological dimensions of biodiversity and climate change.
Biodiversity and Earth System Dynamics
RF Biodiversity and Earth System Dynamics analyzes key periods of Earth’s history to derive “lessons from the past“, particularly with respect to the mutual impact of biodiversity on evolution – biotic and abiotic – of the “Earth system”. Further, it studies the impact of environmental change and increased anthropogenic sea use on sedimentary environments of coastal and shelf seas as well as on non-tropical shallow- and deep-water biosedimentary systems and carbon cycling. A third focus on Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment complements these longer time scales as it addresses the evolution of humans in the light of the multifaceted interactions with their paleoenvironment.
Link of the Research page : Research Page
Link of the Annual report :