General research interests


I am broadly interested in anthropogenic impacts on natural ecosystems. Anthropogenic climate change, land-use change, eutrophication etc. trigger a wide variety of responses in ecological systems across ecosystem types. Population size structure, food-web structure and consumer feeding rates are strongly altered in response to biotic and abiotic stressors with severe consequences for functions and services provided by natural ecosystems. Throughout my scientific career, I have worked on marine, freshwater and terrestrial systems in temperate, boreal and tropical zones. Over the years, I have conducted extensive field surveys, in situ mesocosm experiments and laboratory experiments. Food-web theory, metabolic theory and ecological stoichiometry form the theoretical background for most of my previous research. Currently, I am looking for a challenging research project for the near future.




Current PostDoc

My current position within the BEFmate project (Biodiversity and Ecosystem functioning across marine and terrestrial ecosystems) is a synthesis PostDoc. One current project focuses on trophic level impacts on species area relationships.


PhD

For my PhD with title "Using body mass, metabolism and stoichiometry to assess ecological impacts in a changing environment", I was part of subproject B01 "Structure, stability and functioning of macro-invertebrate communities in rainforest transformation systems in Sumatra (Indonesia)" of the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center 990 "Ecological and Socioeconomic Functions of Tropical Lowland Rainforest Transformation Systems (Sumatra, Indonesia)" (EFForTS). Together with Andrew Barnes, I investigated macro-invertebrate communities of the litter layer in tropical lowland rainforest, jungle rubber, rubber and oil palm monoculture plantations. Results from my PhD are published in our 2014 shared-first-author paper in Nat. Commun. and in the 2015 Biol. Cons. paper of our M.Sc. student Steffen Mumme. Two first-authored manuscripts from my PhD on consumer responses to varying resource stoichiometry are still in review.


Diploma project


For my diploma thesis with title: "Bottom-up versus top-down control in a marine benthic food web" I worked with Dr. Eoin O'Gorman (School of Biology & Environmental Science, University College Dublin) at Lough Hyne (Co. Cork, Ireland), a highly sheltered marine reserve in Southwest Ireland. Using Carcinus maenas as top predator in a mesocosm experiment situated in the shallow subtidal of the Lough, we aimed to find out how nutrient enrichment and altered body mass of the top predator species affect the food web of the Lough's shallow subtidal. Results from this experiment are published in our 2012 paper in Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc. B.

Publications:


Clough, Y., Krishna, V.V., Corre, M.D., Darras, K., Denmead, L.H., Meijide, A., Moser, S., Musshoff, O., Steinebach, S., Veldkamp, E., Allen, K., Barnes, A.D., Breidenbach, N., Brose, U., Buchori, D., Daniel, R., Finkeldey, R., Harahap, I., Hertel, D., Holtkamp, A.M., Hörandl, E., Irawan, B., Jaya, I.N.S., Jochum, M. , Klarner, B., Knohl, A., Kotowska, M.M., Krashevska, V., Kreft, H., Kurniawan, S., Leuschner, C., Maraun, M., Melati, D.N., Opfermann, N., Pérez-Cruzado, C., Prabowo, W.E., Rembold, K., Rizali, A., Rubiana, R., Schneider, D., Tjitrosoedirdjo, S.S., Tjoa, A., Tscharntke, T. & Scheu, S. (2016): Land-use choices follow profitability at the expense of ecological functions in Indonesian smallholder landscapes. Nature Communications, 7:13137, doi:10.1038/ncomms13137


Barnes, A.D., Weigelt, P., Jochum, M., Ott, D., Haneda, N.F. & Brose, U. (2016). Species richness and biomass explain spatial turnover in ecosystem functioning across tropical and temperate ecosystems. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B., doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0279


Mumme, S., Jochum, M., Brose, U., Haneda, N.F. & Barnes, A.D. (2015): Functional diversity and stability of litter-invertebrate communities following land-use change in Sumatra, Indonesia. Biological Conservation 191: 750-758


Kalinkat G., Jochum, M. , Brose, U. & Dell, A.I. (2015): Body size and the behavioral ecology of insects: linking individuals to ecological communities. Current Opinion in Insect Science 9: 24-30


Barnes, A.D., Jochum, M., Mumme, S., Haneda, N.F., Farajallah, A., Widarto, T.H., Brose, U. (2014): Consequences of tropical land use for multitrophic biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Nature Communications 5:5351 doi: 10.1038/ncomms6351 shared first authorship


Jochum, M., Schneider, F.D., Crowe, T.P., Brose, U. and O'Gorman, E.J. (2012): Climate-induced changes in bottom-up and top-down processes independently alter a marine ecosystem. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 367: 2962-70


Invited Talks:


Community energy flux as a measure of multitrophic ecosystem functioning
April 30, 2015 at Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland
Invited by Gísli Már Gíslason


Community energy flux as a measure of multitrophic ecosystem functioning
March 31, 2015 at Ecology and Evolution Seminar Series, Imperial College London
Invited by Eoin O'Gorman




Conference contributions:


Decreasing stoichiometric resource quality drives compensatory feeding and consumer species loss across trophic levels December 11-14, 2016, oral presentation at BES annual meeting, Liverpool, UK


Resource stoichiometry and habitat structure drive diversity and biomass density of tropical macro-invertebrate communities August 7-12, 2016, oral presentation at ESA annual meeting, Fort Lauderdale, USA


Litter macro-invertebrate community responses to consumer-resource stoichiometric imbalance August 31 - September 4, 2015, oral presentation at GFÖ annual meeting, Göttingen, Germany


Consequences of tropical land use for multitrophic biodiversity and ecosystem functioning December 9-12, 2014, poster presentation at BES-SFE joint annual meeting, Lille, France


Tropical rainforest decomposer food webs along a land-use intensity gradient in Sumatra August 18-23, 2013, oral presentation at INTECOL, London, UK


Climate-induced changes in bottom-up and top-down processes independently alter marine ecosystems December 17-20, 2012, oral presentation at Annual Meeting of the British Ecological Society, Birmingham, UK

The structure, stability and functioning of macro-invertebrate communities in rainforest transformation systems in Sumatra (Indonesia) December 17-20, 2012, poster presentation at Annual Meeting of the British Ecological Society, Birmingham, UK

Bottom-up vs. top-down control in a marine benthic food web. March 22-23, 2012, poster presentation at Multitrophic Interactions workshop Göttingen, Germany