Thorsten Reusch

GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel

Representative Education and Carreer

Projects

The focus of my research is the ecology of evolution. Any ecological interaction is also a selection pressure. Consequently, if there is heritable variation, evolutionary change will take place. There is now ample evidence that the separation between ecological and evolutionary scale is misleading, in particular in marine systems. Both time scales are commensurate and should be answered within a common framework. Given the predicted environmental changes in the next decades, one focus area is the evolutionary response of populations to global change, including ocean warming, acidification, biological invasions and selective harvesting. Towards this end, both heritable variation within populations, and the distribution of genetic variation across latitudinal gradients needs to be quantified. Such an approach will benefit from an expansion of the evolutionary ecology toolbox. Once selectively relevant polymorphism is identified, predictions on the evolutionary potential of populations become possible.