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

 

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


Bio-Oceanography and Marine Biology

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

News

11.12.2025
 

"Localisation and function of the centromeric protein ParB in Multicellular Longitudinally Dividing Neisseriaceae"

11.12.2025
 

"Tracing Biliverdin Metabolism in Bacteria and Archaea"

06.12.2025
 

Marine fungi are emerging as key yet understudied contributors to carbon turnover in the ocean. Zihao Zhao’s FWF project offers the first global...

01.12.2025
 

"Investigation of the Host-Associated and Environmental Microbiomes to the Mercury Detoxification Strategies of Two Caiman Species in French Guiana"

19.11.2025
 

"Redefining AOA Ecophysiology: From Biofilm Formation to Oxygen Production"

19.11.2025
 

The "Expert View" article by Arindam Ghatak, Iro Pierides, Palak Chaturvedi, and Wolfram Weckwerth from the University of Vienna, in collaboration...