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

24.10.2025
 

“Biofilm Formation and Cultivation of Ammonia Oxidizing Archaea”

13.10.2025
 

Dr. Valerie De Anda joins the Microbial Oceanography Unit as a Senior Research Fellow, bringing her expertise in microbial metabolism in extreme...

08.10.2025
 

We are pleased to welcome Rita, a PhD student from the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics in Trieste, Italy. She will be...

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