Marine Plankton Ecology & Evolution

Our current research explores how phytoplankton communities respond and adapt to environmental change across ecological and evolutionary timescales. The Baltic Sea is our main study system, where strong environmental gradients, rapid warming and a long history of eutrophication provide a unique opportunity to investigate how human pressures shape plankton biodiversity and evolution.

A major focus of our work is resurrection ecology. Many phytoplankton species produce dormant stages that accumulate in sediments and can remain viable for decades or even centuries. By reviving these organisms from dated sediment layers, we can directly compare historical and contemporary populations and experimentally investigate how their traits and environmental responses have changed through time.

We are increasingly combining this living archive with sedimentary environmental DNA and paleogenomics. Through the EMBL-led TREC Paleocore network and other collaborations, we use dated coastal sediment cores to reconstruct historical phytoplankton communities and environmental change across European marine ecosystems. Integrating these molecular records with experiments and genomics allows us to ask not only how ecosystems have changed, but whether the organisms themselves have evolved in response to eutrophication, warming and other human pressures.

Together, this research aims to reveal what has changed, what may be reversible, and how plankton communities are likely to respond to future environmental conditions. Ultimately, we seek to provide a stronger biological foundation for understanding the resilience and regeneration of the Baltic Sea and other rapidly changing coastal ecosystems.