Bryozoans are abundantly present in the marine realm, and in certain freshwater habitats as well. Basic research on bryozoan taxonomy has relevance for a variety of applied subjects such as pharmaceutical biology, fouling communities, coastal area management, neozoan invasions, pollution indication, and climate change.
Bryozoans are abundantly present in the marine realm, and in certain freshwater habitats as well. Basic research on bryozoan taxonomy has relevance for a variety of applied subjects such as pharmaceutical biology, fouling communities, coastal area management, neozoan invasions, pollution indication, and climate change. Taxonomy at the species level (=α-taxonomy) is considered to be central to integrative biology, and thus represents one of our research priorities. Several taxonomical studies have been completed in recent years on fossil bryozoans of the collection E. Voigt.
Our collection of extant bryozoans is furthermore utilized for studies of internal structure and the biomineral architecture of colonies.
Accordingly, the current activities are focusing on
Research Field 1: Biodiversity, Systematics und Evolution
and on the subdivisions
The bryozoan collection of Professor Dr. Ehrhard Voigt at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main, Germany is a world-renowned collection of inestimate scientific value. It is the world’s largest collection of fossil bryozoans from the Upper Cretaceous and Palaeocene.
The collection represents a near-to complete documentation of the evolution of bryozoans on a carbonate platform extending from Central France to Southern Sweden and Central Poland, and lasting almost 50 million years from the Cenomanian to the Paleocene. The comprehensive “Bryo-archive” can be utilized as a valuable research infrastructure, documenting some highlights of the rise and (temporary) fall of bryozoans in the course of their evolutionary history: the early expansion of various types of ascophorines and interior-walled cyclostomes, the increasing importance of laminar growing taxa, the evolutionary crisis at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), resulting in the final breakdown of the bryozoan-rich carbonate platform.
A DFG-project funded project (LIS-Project SCHO 581/12-1 “Enhancing documentation and digitalization of the Bryozoa collection donated by Professor Voigt (1905-2004) to the Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany”), aiming at the digitization of the most important parts of the bryozoan coll. E. Voigt, resulted in several taxonomical studies, undertaken under the lead of the project team member and today´s guest researcher Silviu-Octavian Martha. Probably most importantly, a three-part type catalogue of the collection Voigt was published online in 2019:
Martha S.O., Matsuyama K., Scholz J., Taylor P.M. & Hillmer G. (2019).- The bryozoan collection of Prof. Dr Ehrhard Voigt (1905–2004) at the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt. Part 1 – Introduction and Cyclostomata.- Carnets de Géologie, Madrid, vol. 19, no. 13, p. 221-275. E-ISSN 1634-0744. DOI 10.4267/2042/70498
Martha S.O., Matsuyama K., Scholz J., Taylor P.M. & Hillmer G. (2019).- The bryozoan collection of Prof. Dr Ehrhard Voigt (1905–2004) at the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt. Part 2 – Ctenostomata and non-ascophoran Cheilostomata.- Carnets de Géologie, Madrid, vol. 19, no. 15, p. 287-344. E-ISSN 1634-0744. DOI 10.4267/2042/70498
Martha S.O., Matsuyama K., Scholz J., Taylor P.M. & Hillmer G. (2019).- The bryozoan collection of Prof. Dr Ehrhard Voigt (1905–2004) at the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt. Part 3 – Ascophoran Cheilostomata and bibliography.- Carnets de Géologie, Madrid, vol. 19, no. 17, p. 369-419. E-ISSN 1634-0744. DOI 10.4267/2042/70498
Constructional morphology combines evolutionary, adaptational, and architectural aspects in the analysis of a given structure (Seilacher 1970). Why do living organisms have the designs and the skeletons they actually possess? And how do skeletons of solitary, colonial and clonal animals relate to the nature of organic individuality? The theory of hierarchical selection requires a clear understanding of the role of individuals as primary causal agents. This is not just a topic for highly theoretical debates. The biosphere is in the present subjected to severe anthropogene climate change and mass extinction, we need to know which is the most active part of living matter – genes, cells, populations. species as individuals, ecosystems, or the biosphere or even the earth itself (Gaia-system) as singular entangled, complex body?
Construction of cells and multicellular organisms is the basis of living matter due to their function as energy converters. Constructional morphology became a focus in Senckenberg for more than three decades after the marine zoologist Wilhelm Schäfer (1912-1981) was appointed director in 1961. Currently, implications for architecture, nanotechnology, and the demands of bionics are triggering a renaissance of the practical science of constructional morphology.
Bryozoan research is contributing to some aspects of constructional morphology and bionics, combining advanced technologies (micro-CT scanning, BSE, EBSD, NanoSIMS) with traditional light microscopy and SEM. This is made possible by collaborations with partners e.g. in the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, the Macquarie University´s Department of Earth and Earth and Environmental Sciences, and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (Mainz).
Publication:
Jacob, Dorrit & Ruthensteiner, Bernhard & Trimby, Patrick & Henry, Hadrien & Martha, Silviu-Octavian & Leitner, Jan & Otter, Laura & Scholz, Joachim (2019). Architecture of Anoteropora latirostris (Bryozoa, Cheilostomata) and implications for their biomineralization. Scientific Reports. 9.10.1038/s41598-019-47848-4.
Earlier studies have also contributed to
Reconstructing faunal changes through the study of museum collections have been a research goal in a study of bryozoans of the North Sea basin. Sampling covered time periods from 1776 to 2008. Starting with a diploma thesis at the University of Rostock (F. Bitschofsky), the research had been continued well into 2010/11, funded by BiK F Project B2.10 Ecosystem engineering. Results have been published by Bitschofsky et al. (2011), and by Bitschofsky (2013).
Similar studies have been conducted in cooperation with various Japanese Research teams. Since 1999 (the year of foundation of the bryozoology section at the Senckenberg), the marine biology legacy of the Japan pioneer Ludwig Döderlein (1855-1936) and some of his successors in Japan has been published (Scholz 2009, Scholz et al. 2012).
Compared to those historical records, we found out that nowadays, several frame building bryzoan species in Sagami Bay, still present in historical collections, became regionally extinct (Hirose et al 2013).
Publication:
Hirose, M., Mawatari, S.F. & J. Scholz (2013): Distribution and diversity of Erect Bryozoan Assemblages along the Pacific Coast of Japan. – In: Schäfer, P, Ernst, A. & J. Scholz (eds.): Bryozoan Studies 2010. Lecture Notes in Earth System Sciences 143: 121-136. Heidelberg, Springer
Advancing existing classification of laminar growth forms has been subject of several cooperative Senckenberg projects. From 1999 to 2003, a DFG/JSPS/MoRST project team, shared by colleagues from Japan and New Zealand (GE 64/8-1, GE 64/8-2 „Bryozoans Microbial Mats), analyzed bryozoan growth forms from subtropical to cool-temperate latitudes, considering the selective forces of microorganisms. Evidently, settlement and growth successs of the various bryozoan laminar growth types is selectively influenced by biofilms and microbial mats. Accordingly, laminar growth types become a new tool for paleoecologcial interpretation of marine hard substrate communities (Kaselowsky 2002, Kaselowsky et al 2005, Gerdes et al 2005a, 2005b, Scholz 2000)
