New research projects on functional biodiversity and paleo-foodweb

The Biodiversity of the Blue Ocean

Good news: I have received funding for two new research projects by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). These projects, each set for a duration of three years, are part of the Biodiversity in the Blue Ocean (BBO) cluster, a funding initiative that covers a broad spectrum of marine systems - from the biodiversity of tiny plankton species to fish and organisms that live on the seabed. One special of focus the BBO cluster is that researchers are working closely with national and international decision-makers, with the ultimate goal to incorporate the research findings into management strategies and to develop concrete recommendations for action to protect marine biodiversity in the Blue Ocean.

My funded projects cover only a small part of this. They are related more to the fundamental research within two BBO consortia: INDIFUN-AI and AGELESS.

INDIFUN-AI

INDIFUN-AI aims to quantify functional biodiversity and to develop robust bioindicators of ecosystem health that characterize key taxa and plankton communities in the North Atlantic.

The role of my research group in this consortium is the development of innovative bioindicators to monitor and assess biodiversity in Arctic marine ecosystems. Utilizing comprehensive datasets from the Arctic's pelagic zones, we apply advanced data science to reconstruct species’ functional traits and assess biodiversity dynamics. The research centres on understanding temporal changes and turnover in functional biodiversity, investigating the impact of environmental drivers, and designing AI-powered bioindicators capable of providing early detection of ecosystem changes.

AGELESS

AGELESS will use long-term and fossil-record data on plankton diversity to develop a framework for the assessment and protection of biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

The role of my research group in this consortium is the development of spatially explicit, size-structured models of paleo food-webs to investigate how climate change has impacted marine species across different trophic levels, from microplankton to megafauna. These models will describe species’ spatial ranges based on their climatic niche and body size, capturing predator-prey relationships and thermal affinities. By simulating colonization and extinction events within the food-web context, the models will predict species distributions and associated extinction cascades due to environmental changes. Using marine fossil records for calibration, these models will also guide the design of climate-smart marine protected areas (MPAs).

I am excited about this project, as it will build on my earlier work on evolutionary allometric foodweb models, but most importantly allow me to dive into ecological models in deep time.