Department of Environmental Sciences
Plants are fundamental components of the earth system. Their ability to assimilate atmospheric carbon dioxide shapes the way ecosystems function.
Our main research topics are adaptation to climate and climate change, distribution limits and genetic conflicts.
Plants continuously interact with a diverse microbiota that impacts its nutrition and health and determines yields in agriculture.
The main focus of the group are the evolution, genomics and ecology of host-parasite and host-mutualist interactions.
Our research deals with the question of how new species - and thus biological diversity - arise.
Our research deals with the question of how morphological diversity arises during embryonic development of vertebrates.
In our research we deal with various aspects of the sustainable use and protection of resources.
Conservation biology is a multidisciplinary field of science dealing with the analysis of various levels of biodiversity and assessing the causes for its decline.
IPAS is a unique combination of humanities and natural science research areas and archaeology courses all under one roof.
Research activities of our group deal with biogeochemical processes in aquatic systems and sedimentary environments.
Research of the Geoecology group focusses on past, present and potential future effects of environmental drivers on species, assemblages and ecosystems.
We are interested in terrestrial biogeochemical cycling with an emphasis on soil processes. We investigate soil-atmosphere interactions.
Our group investigates the role of aerosols in the atmosphere and performs studies elucidating different meteorological processes.
Physiogeography records, organizes and explains the natural environment of humans.
The Global and Regional Land Use Change Research Group aims to understand interlocking processes of global change and their impact on the scarce resource of land, as well as possible trade-offs in the use of biomass.
The Quaternary period comprises the last 2.66 million years and is characterized by cyclic changes in global ice volume. These glacial-interglacial cycles had a profound impact on climate and ecosystems.
Current research focuses also on urban geology and hydrogeology as well as the management of subsurface resources (water & energy).
