Unser Team

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Research interests

I am a geologist interested in dating sedimentary records and reconstructing terrestrial paleo-environments, especially during warm greenhouse periods such as the Eocene. These terrestrial records are key in providing constraints on dust fluxes and precipitation in the past, especially when accurately dated by using magneto- and cyclostratigraphy. I employ a variety of sedimentological tools such as grain-size distributions and surface textures to track mineral dust and aridification in the geological record (as described in Meijer et al., 2020; Earth-Sci. Rev.). Furthermore, I am using stable and clumped isotopes to reconstruct temperature as well as precipitation and study their role in driving biotic changes.

The middle Miocene Climate Transition in Europe

The mMCT at ~14 Ma is characterized by atmospheric cooling and the growth of the West Antarctic ice sheet. This may have had major implications for ocean circulation and precipitation patterns, especially in Europe where westerly moisture is controlled by pressure systems over the Atlantic Ocean. I aim to explore these precipitation patterns across the mMCT by measuring the stable and clumped isotopes in high-resolution terrestrial records in Spain and compare these with various other records throughout Europe.
 
North American Paleoclimate and Biodiversity Evolution

The continental basins in the north-western US provide a rich fossil mammal record marked by multiple shifts in biodiversity during the Eocene period. I aim to reconstruct the climatic evolution of the Paleogene basins in Idaho and Montana by using stable and clumped isotopes to understand the links between climate and mammal biodiversity.
 
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East Asian monsoons during the Eocene

Monsoons are a characteristic feature of the modern-day Asian climate, yet their geological history remains debated. I have dated sedimentary records from the Xining Basin in central China using magnetostratigraphy to study the evolution of the monsoons during the Eocene period. I use various sedimentological, geochemical and palynological proxies to track atmospheric moisture and dust storms to study the evolution of the monsoons and westerlies.
 
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East Asian monsoons during the Eocene

Monsoons are a characteristic feature of the modern-day Asian climate, yet their geological history remains debated. I have dated sedimentary records from the Xining Basin in central China using magnetostratigraphy to study the evolution of the monsoons during the Eocene period. I use various sedimentological, geochemical and palynological proxies to track atmospheric moisture and dust storms to study the evolution of the monsoons and westerlies.

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Duration of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)

The PETM is arguably the most famous and well-studied climatic event in Earth’s history and serves as an analogue for future global warming. This hyperthermal event has been recorded in the orbitally-forced terrestrial deposits of the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming US, at high-resolution which enabled improved estimates on the duration of the PETM.

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RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research interests are mainly focused around the conservation of biodiversity and, in particular, assessing the impacts of environmental change on species distributions and diversity patterns. So far, my research has comprised different aspects of conservation work, from modelling a single species distribution, with the aim to support conservation actions, to global conservation assessments. My recent work has been largely focused on assessing the impacts of climate and land-use change on terrestrial vertebrate distributions, ranging from potential changes in global biodiversity patterns to changes in local species community compositions. Currently I am working on a project in collaboration with the Frankfurt Zoological Society to identify global sites of conservation interest, that have a high potential for successful long-term conservation.

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I am fascinated by how and why both taxonomic and ecomorphological diversity are so unevenly distributed across the tree of life. Why do some clades comprise just a few ecomorphologically similar species, while others are made up of thousands of species with disparate ecologies and morphologies spread across all corners of the globe? Why do some clades or ecomorphological traits pass through extinction events relatively unscathed, while others are decimated to extinction? What biotic and abiotic factors drive these patterns to ultimately shape the biodiversity we see throughout geological history and today? To date, I have worked primarily on the evolution of mammals through time, using mostly fossil but also extant datasets of taxonomic occurrence and ecomorphological trait data. Mammals evolved over 200 million years ago, carving out niches alongside the dinosaurs for much of their evolutionary history. Mammals survived the mass extinction that killed all non-avian dinosaurs, and underwent a major adaptive radiation, becoming arguably the most important tetrapod group in Cenozoic land vertebrate ecosystems. For this reason, the Cenozoic is often referred to as the ‚Age of Mammals‘. Throughout their evolutionary history, perturbations in the macroevolutionary patterns of mammals have been significantly linked to changes in Earth’s climate and environment. Through my work I aim to both quantify these long-term patterns of mammal evolution, as well as better understand what drives these patters. To do this, I use a suite of statistical methods in conjunction with large datasets, and take an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand patterns and drivers of macroevolution holistically, exploring interactions between the Geosphere and the Biosphere.

My general research interest centers on exploring how ecosystems respond to human-induced global change. I use spatially explicit biological models to gain deeper insights into the connection between global change and biodiversity.    I’m currently working on how extreme weather events affect bird distributions and populations in Germany. My objective is to offer valuable recommendations for conserving species and their habitats in the context of climate change, particularly in the face of extreme weather events. This project is funded by a doctoral scholarship spanning three years, awarded by Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU). 

Research interests

I am interested in understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes that drive patterns of biodiversity. One major factor influencing the distribution of species is climate. As such, my current research focusses on the dynamics of climatic niches in birds.

One-fifth of birds (~2000 species) migrate seasonally between breeding and wintering grounds. However, many studies of climatic niches use only breeding distribution and year-round climate data, ignoring seasonal dynamics in climate and distribution.  For my PhD project, I am using breeding and wintering range maps to characterise and compare climatic niches inhabited by migratory birds during each season in order to determine whether migratory birds track a single climatic niche throughout the year. The results have implications for understanding the drivers of seasonal movements and the evolution of both climatic niches and migration.

Understanding the current climatic niches of birds will allow me to investigate the interplay between past climatic conditions, climatic niche evolution and diversification. I am using current climatic niches obtained from my analyses of migratory birds in combination with phylogenies in order to determine whether climatic niche evolution is related to paleo-climatic conditions, and whether there is there a relationship between the rate of climatic niche evolution and clade diversification.

Research interests

Biodiversity – Macroecology & Macroevolution

I am interested in understanding broad-scale biodiversity dynamics, in space and time, particularly the dramatic temporal and spatial variation in different aspects of biodiversity. I investigate the processes underlying biodiversity patterns, with an emphasis on the role of history in shaping global and regional biota, including evolutionary history of the organisms and historical environmental transitions (e.g. landscape evolution and paleoclimate change).

I take an interdisciplinary approach to research by synthesising large datasets from ecology, evolution, palaeontology, geoscience, etc. I also integrate knowledge from studying various organismal systems, including terrestrial mammals, marine bivalves, and parasites.

Funded by a DFG Eigene Stelle grant, my current work combines cross-continent paleontological and neontological data of terrestrial large mammals to investigate the macroevolution of body size in relation to ecological functions and environmental transitions.

See more on my Research website.