Research

Marine ecosystems provide a large amount of essential goods and
services to our society and the quality of these products often directly
depends on the biological diversity in these environments. Today,
impacts from overexploitation and pollution of marine habitats as well
as climate change cause substantial loss of biodiversity, reaching
levels only comparable to the five major mass extinctions in Earth’s
history. In my research I am establishing and testing harmonized and
automated observation systems for biological diversity in the sea,
spanning from molecular sensors (i.e. genomic observatories) to human
sensors (i.e. citizen science). I am also developing methods and
infrastructures that capture and integrate such data to enable
inter-disciplinary research for the protection and management of our
biological resources in the ocean.

marine and benthic ecology, marine conservation biology, invertebrate
phylogeny and systematics, marine phylogeography, molecular taxonomy,
metabarcoding, phylogenomics, metagenomics, e-science, zoomorphology,
ecological niche modeling