Christoph Plum

Research Focus

My research interest is the investigation of biodiversity and ecosystem functions in marine ecosystems – from the deep sea to the euphotic zone. I study diversity and community patterns of marine invertebrates, such as meiofauna and zooplankton, but also focus on stoichiometric interactions in planktonic food webs.

Keywords

Biodiversity – Ecosystem Functioning – Ecological Stoichiometry – Plankton – Meiofauna

Project

Altered stoichiometry and species interactions in coastal Antarctic plankton communities under global climate change

The goal of my current project is to increase our understanding of how future changes in environmental conditions along the West Antarctic Peninsula will alter plankton communities and trophic interactions. The project aims at assessing specifically the effects of increasing and fluctuating temperature in combination with altered relative nutrient availability on phytoplankton biomass, stoichiometry and community composition. The second aim is to understand the consequences of changes in temperature and nutrient availability for zooplankton in terms of resource use efficiency, biomass and stoichiometry.

Three Selected Publications

Plum C, Hillebrand H, Moorthi M (2020) Krill vs salps: dominance shift from krill to salps is associated with higher dissolved N:P ratios. Scientific Reports, doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62829-8

Plum C, Hüsener M, Hillebrand H (2015) Multiple vs. single phytoplankton species alter stoichiometry of trophic interaction with zooplankton. Ecology, doi.org/10.1890/15-0393.1

Hillebrand H, Cowles JM, Lewandowska A, Van de Waal DB, Plum C (2014) Think ratio! A stoichiometric view on biodiversity–ecosystem functioning research. Basic and Applied Ecology, doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2014.06.003

Short CV

2017 – today Post-Doc at the ICBM, University of Oldenburg, Germany

2015 – 2016 Post-Doc at the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka, Japan

2013 – 2014 Post-Doc at the Institute français de recherche pour l´exploitation de la mer (IFREMER), Brest, France

2009 – 2013 PhD at the ICBM, University of Oldenburg, Germany

2008 – 2009 Researcher at the DZMB, Senckenberg am Meer, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

2002 – 2007 Study of Biology at the University of Oldenburg, Germany