Professor Dr. Helmut Hillebrand

Research Focus

I am generally very interested in the mechanisms that constrain and alter biodiversity in a variety of ecosystems. I like to think about the complex nature of biodiversity change and ecological stability. Trained as an experimental ecologist, I have focused more on research syntheses and data analyses in recent years.

Keywords

Ecological stability - Biodiversity - Ecosystem Functioning - Ecological Stoichiometry

Most Recent Projects

2019-2025 DFG Research Unit FOR 2716/1 and /2 (Hi 848/26-1; 25-1) Spatial community ecology in highly dynamic landscapes: from island biogeography to metaecosystems [DynaCom]

2023-2027 European Union Horizon 2020 project Advancing understanding of cumulative impacts on European marine biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services for human wellbeing [ACTNOW]

2024-2027 BMBF collaborative project Leveraging long-term planktonic data to develop a framework to assess and protect biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction [AGELESS]

2024-2027 DFG project Critical transitions in biodiversity: From foundations to detections and warning

Three selected key publications

Kuczynski L, Ontiveros VJ, Hillebrand H (2023) Biodiversity time series are biased towards increasing species richness in changing environments. Nature Ecology & Evolution 7:994–1001 (doi: 10.1038/s41559-023-02078-w)

Hillebrand H, Acevedo-Trejos E, Moorthi SD, Ryabov A, Striebel M, Thomas P, Schneider M-L (2022) Cell size as driver and sentinel of phytoplankton community structure and functioning. Functional Ecology 36:276-293 (doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.13986)

Hillebrand H, Kuczynski L, Kunze C, Rillo MC, Dajka J-C (2023) Thresholds and tipping points are tempting but not necessarily suitable concepts to address anthropogenic biodiversity change—an intervention. Marine Biodiversity 53:43 (doi: 10.1007/s12526-023-01342-3)

Short CV

2017 - today  Director Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg, HIFMB

2008 - today  Professor for Plankton Ecology, ICBM, University of Oldenburg

2004 - 2008  Associate professor, University of Cologne

2002 - 2004  Assistant professor, University of Kiel

2001 - 2002  Postdoctoral Fellow, Uppsala University, Sweden

1999 - 2001  Postdoctoral Fellow, Erken Laboratory, Uppsala University, Sw.

1996 - 1999  Dissertation at the University of Kiel, Germany

1988 - 1994  Study of Biology at the University of Oldenburg, Germany