Mission Statement

The Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology within the Faculty of Life Sciences aims at a mechanistic understanding of ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes from organismic to ecosystem scale. Specifically, we study and teach biodiversity, symbioses, metabolic pathways, ecophysiology and ecosystem functioning in light of environmental change.

Units

Archaea Biology and Ecogenomics

Christa Schleper - Archaea Ecology and Evolution
Silvia Bulgheresi - Environmental Cell Biology
Simon Rittmann - Archaea Physiology & Biotechnology
Filipa Sousa - Genome Evolution and Ecology
Isabelle Zink - Archaea Immunity and Molecular Tools

 

Limnology

Christian Griebler - Groundwater Ecology
Katrin Attermeyer - Carbocrobe
Hubert Keckeis - Fish Ecology
Michael Schagerl - Phycology

 

 

Molecular Systems Biology

Wolfram Weckwerth - Systems Theory in Ecology and Biology
Palak Chaturvedi - Crops in a Changing Climate Environment
Ingeborg Lang - Structural and functional plant cell biology
Markus Teige - Plant signalling
Steffen Waldherr - Computational methods for systems biology
Stefanie Wienkoop - Plant-Microsymbiont Interaction


Marine Ecology

Monika Bright - Marine Benthic Ecology
Gerhard Herndl - Microbial Oceanography
Frank Melzner - Marine Experimental Ecology
Thomas Reinthaler - Marine Microbial Biogeochemistry

Facilities and Research Platforms

News

07.10.2025
 

We are pleased to welcome Yinhui as a PhD student to the group! Her research focuses on the community structure and metabolic processes of deep-sea...

06.10.2025
 

The 18th Symposium on Aquatic Microbial Ecology (SAME) took place in Barcelona, Spain, from September 28 to October 3, 2025. The theme was all about...

01.10.2025
 

Climate Change and Climate Crisis: Towards the Eco-Sociological Transformation

30.09.2025
 

Scientists from Wolfram Weckwerth group and Nankai-University link physical fitness to blood biomarkers, with aspartate emerging as a key player

26.09.2025
 

We are delighted to announce that Cristina López Hidalgo has been awarded the Extraordinary Doctorate Award by the University of Oviedo for her work...

26.09.2025
 

We are delighted to announce that Cristina López Hidalgo, from the Laboratory of Molecular Systems Biology (MOSYS), Department of Functional and...