About me
I am an animal ecologist, interested in the structure of arthropod communities and their responses to environmental change. In my projects I investigate the highly diverse and abundant fauna of soil- and litter-dwelling arthropods and how these communities are shaped by land-use change and global warming. In particular I am interested how environmental change affects biotic interactions, such as predator-prey interactions, and thereby drives community composition, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
To identify feeding interactions between arthropods, I use metabarcoding coupled with high-throughput sequencing. This approach allows for accurate determination of ingested prey even under difficult conditions, such as when prey is very small. Such I was able to explore the impact of forest management on centipede prey choice or see how temperature and habitat affects feeding of Arctic wolf spiders.
Current and past positions
since September 2022
Research fellow at University of Koblenz-Landau, iES Landau, Ecosystem Analysis with Prof Martin Entling.
September- November 2021 and April - August 2022
Research fellow at the Forstliche Versuchs- und Forschungsanstalt Baden-Württemberg (FVA), Dept. Soil and Environment with Dr Heike Puhlmann. Monitoring of soil invertebrates across forests of Baden-Württemberg
May 2018 - January 2021
Research fellow (previously Visiting researcher) at the University of Freiburg, Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology with Prof Alexandra-Maria Klein.
December 2018 - October 2019
Research fellow at the University of Marburg, Conservation Ecology with Prof Nina Farwig.
May 2015-April 2018
Research fellow at the University of Helsinki, Department of Agricultural Sciences with Prof Tomas Roslin. Study of structure and dynamics of Arctic invertebrate food webs in Northeast Greenland (Zackenberg). Research fellowship by German Research Foundation DFG from April 2016 to April 2018.
January 2009-April 2015
Research fellow at the University of Göttingen, Institute of Zoology and Anthropology with Prof Stefan Scheu.
Study of land-use change on forest soil animal communities within the Biodiversity Exploratories project of the German Research Foundation (subproject LitterLinks).
January 2009- July 2013
PhD student at the University of Göttingen, title of PhD thesis: “Molecular analysis of centipede predation" (Advisor Prof Stefan Scheu).