Earth System Research
On this page you can find the main research topics that instructors of the program are engaged with. Although external topics are also available, most students conduct research that is related to what our instructors pursue.
Traditional disciplinary research
Atmosphere
Hydrosphere
Geosphere
Biosphere
The ecology of global change in space and time
(W. Kiessling, S. Teichert, A. Kocsis)
- Biodiversity dynamics and global-scale changes of the Earth System
- The study of mass extinction events and climate change
- Integration of processes at multiple time scales: from deep-time to Recent
Extinction rate of marine organisms through the Phanerozoic. (Image by W. Kiessling and A. Kocsis)
Carbonate systems and sedimentology
(A. Munnecke, W. Kiessling, S. Teichert
- Carbonate rocks as archives of paleoenvironmental and paleoclimate change
- The paleoecology of reef systems
- Reconstruction of paleoenvironments
Centimeter scale fragments of various organisms. (Photo by Axel Munnecke)
Phylogenetics
- Macroevolution and the relative contributions of biotic interactions (e.g., symbiosis, parasitism) and abiotic factors (e.g., climate) in driving macroevolutionary patterns
- Mechanistic models of phylogeny
Trees inferred for a dataset of ceteacen fossil occurrences (Figure 4. from Barido-Sottani et al. 2019)
Paleobiology of marine vertebrates
- Ecology and evolution of Neogene marine vertebrates (Cetacea)
- Geometric morphometrics
Forest Ecology
Island biogeography
Interdisciplinary research
Philosophy of Science
Interdisciplinary case studies
Naturally, our output is much more diverse and these are just the main themes that we follow in our research. You can find out more about research at the GeoZentrum, the Institute of Geography and at the biology institute at the University of Bayreuth