Integrative Ecophysiology
fish species from different latitudes (drawing by Sonja Schadwinkel)
THEME AND MISSION
Mechanisms and processes linking climate to ecosystem change, unravelled through integrative animal ecophysiology.
Integrated molecular (functional genomics), biochemical, physiological and ecological investigations in selected animal models (invertebrates and fish) support the identification of mechanisms and processes, which shape biogeography, biodiversity and community structures in marine environments defined by natural and anthropogenic factors.
FIELDS AND GOALS OF STUDY
- Climate dependent functional genomics: Analysis of gene functions and regulatory networks defining climate related tolerance limits and acclimation/adaptation capacity of animals
- Biogeography and ecosystem functioning: Definition of the physiological underpinning of ecological patterns in a latitudinal cline through an analysis of the constraints and trade-offs in thermal adaptation at various levels of biological organisation
- Systems biology in various climates: Integration of single molecule functions into the increasingly complex responses of organelles, cells, tissues, animals, populations and ecosystems to environmental change
- Energetic pathways of animal evolution: Construction of conceptual models of the driving forces and mechanistic pathways of climate dependent metazoan evolution
- Species interactions: Definition of the physiological underpinning of species interactions by assessing the variability in species-specific bio-envelopes
- Interaction of climate factors: CO2 dependent thermal limitation
- Prediction of future changes in marine ecosystems: Construction of mechanism-based conceptual models linking field data and physiological information.
