Stefan Scheu

Stefan Scheu is the head of the section Animal Ecology, Faculty of Biology. His research focuses on the structure and functioning of soil animal communities and interrelationships between the below- and aboveground system. Three main topics are investigated: (i) structure of decomposer food webs, (ii) functioning of the belowground system and its feedbacks to plants and the aboveground food web, and (iii) molecular evolution of soil invertebrates.

Key expertise:
• Quantitative Analysis of Decomposer Communities
• Decomposition Processes
• Soil Animal - Soil Microbial Interactions
• Rhizosphere Ecology
• Evolution of Sex and Parthenogenesis

Selected publications:
Birkhofer, K., Bezemer, T.M., Bloem, J., Bonkowski, M., Christensen, S., Dubois, D., Ekelund, F., Fließbach, A., Gunst, L., Hedlund, K., Mäder, P., Mikola, J., Robin, C., Setälä, S., Tatin-Froux, F., Van der Putten, W.H., Scheu, S. (2008) Long-term organic farming fosters below- and aboveground biota: Implications for soil quality, biological control and productivity. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 40: 2297–2308
Domes, K., Norton, R., Maraun, M., Scheu, S. (2007) Reevolution of sexuality brakes Dollo’s law. Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Science of the USA 104: 7139-7144
Eisenhauer, N., Milcu, A., Bessler, H., Engels, C., Gleixner, G., Habekost, M., Partsch, S., Sabais, A.C.W., Scherber, C., Steinbeiss, S., Weigelt, A., Weisser, W.W., Scheu, S. (2010) Plant diversity effects on soil microorganisms support the singular hypothesis. Ecology 91: 485-496.
Pollierer, M., Langel, R., Körner, C., Maraun, M., Scheu, S. (2007) The underestimated importance of belowground carbon input for forest soil animal food webs. Ecology Letters 10: 729-736
von Berg, K., Thies, C., Tscharntke,T., Scheu, S. (2010) Changes in herbivore control in arable weeds by detrital subsidies depend on predator species and vary in space. Oecologia 163: 1033-1042

Please visit http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/107728.html for more information.

Stefan Scheu is teaches the following courses:
• Molecular Soil Ecology