Prof. Dr. Elisa Schaum

An oceanographer turned evolutionary biologist, I investigate the adaptive potential of large marine microbial populations, i.e. I focus on what makes some populations better than others at coping with aspects of climate change in the long-term. Apart from pure curiosity, there is ecological reasoning to this madness, as marine microbes are the foundations of ocean food-webs and biogeochemical cycles, and changes on the microbial level will inevitable have major repercussions on aquatic ecosystems. In my lab, we examine climate change through the lens of both evolutionary biology (under which circumstances do we expect organisms to evolve and how fast, and how much?) and oceanography (what are the ecological repercussions of rapid evolutionary responses? How can we regale modellers with better data?). This includes but is not limited to investigating the role of marine viruses, species interactions, and environmental variability, in a changing world.

Academic education

2011 - 2014: Dr. phil. (evolutionary biology): University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland,

2006-2008: Joint Diplom/MRes (biological oceanography): University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany, and Scottish Association for Marine Sciences, Oban, Scotland

Academic employment

2024 - present: Professor for Plankton Ecology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

2018 - present: Junior Professor for Plankton Ecology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

2014-2017: Research Associate at the University of Exeter (Environment and Sustainability Institute, Cornwall Campus, Penryn),

Publikationen

Eine aktuelle Publikationsliste können Sie gerne auf  Google Scholar, Research Gate oder unserem  FIS Profil abrufen. 

Marine algae: Defying climate change on a rollercoaster

Blogpost for Nature Ecology and Evolution

Science story telling with the Story Collider and Before the Abstract