I am head of Functional Ecology at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.

Here, we work on identification of the links between climate change and ecosystem response and the development of measures to describe the response of ecosystem function to change along environmental gradients.

Our research involves the identification of indicators of ecological change in coastal polar and cold-water ecosystems with emphasis on rocky shores; analysis if cause-and-effect relationships between environmental signal and indicator response; and integration of information derived from indicators into scenarios and models of long- term change.

My role in ARAMACC is as co-supervisor of the WP4 projects based at Mainz, “Trace element incorporation into shells” (with ARAiMACC researcher Liqiang Zhao) and “Exploring the potential of shell crystal fabrics as novel environmental proxies” (with ARAMACC researcher Stefania Milano)