Plankton evolvability work group

About our work

The marine microplankton is an integral part of the oceanic food web and plays a crucial role in the marine carbon cycle and carbonate sequestration. Yet, the ability of the plankton to sustain environmental change is not well understood thus far, largely due to a lack of knowledge about evolutionary processes within a planktonic community that lives in an oceanic setting largely void of physical barriers that could prevent gene flow. In this work group, we are trying to understand the drivers of plankton evolution across the phyto- and zooplankton, quantify the adaptability and evolvability of the marine microplankton, and predict the impact of future climate and environmental change on its biomass, population dynamics, and diversity. Armed with such knowledge, the impact of plankton evolution in the future can be predicted and its coupling with the oceanic resource cycle.

Work group composition

Dr Manuel F. G. Weinkauf

Position: Work group leader

I have been studying Geology and Palaeontology at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) and continued to study the impact of environmental stress on planktonic Foraminifera during my Ph.D. at the Eberhard–Karls Universiät Tübingen (Germany). I then continued as Research Associate at the Université de Genève (Switzerland), studying the impact of the environment on foraminiferal calcification and shell isotope composition. I further started my work on cephalopod ecology and evolution, which I continue at my current position as Academic Researcher at the Univerzita Karlova (Czech Republic).

My research to date deals with the evolvability of the marine plankton and the impact its adaptability and population dynamics will have on the oceanic carbon and carbonate pump during projected climate change scenarios. In parallel, I study the systematics and phylogeny of Cretaceous ammonoids, relating their evolutionary pathways to contemporary environmental change.

Jaime Y. Suárez-Ibarra, M.Sc.

Position: Ph.D. student

I studied my B.Sc. in Geology at the Universidad Industrial de Santander (Colombia) with one year of academic interchange at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), where I also studied for my M.Sc. in Geosciences, focused on Palaeontology, under the supervision of Dr María Pivel. My research centered at biostratigraphy and palaeoceanography of the late Quaternary, based on planktonic Foraminifera—including geochemistry and compositional analyses—of the western South Atlantic.

Nowadays, I develop my Ph.D. studies at the Univerzita Karlova (Czech Republic), under the supervision of Dr Manuel Weinkauf, where I investigate the evolvability of late Caenozoic planktonic Foraminifera from the North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea in response to extreme environmental changes.

Medhavi Srivastava, M.Sc.

Position: Ph.D. student

I completed my Integrated M.Sc. in environmental Science from the Central University of Rajasthan, India. I studied biogeochemistry while working on sediment samples from estuaries of Sundarbans for dissertation. My thesis was based on the relevance of sequential extraction methods for phosphorus species in mangrove ecosystems. Being an interdisciplinary student, I worked on projects from diverse streams of environmental science before joining my Ph.D. project at the Univerzita Karlova. My research interest lies in delving the vastly significant role of blue carbon systems on global climate scales. Presently, I am trying to do so through my doctoral research under the supervision of Dr Manuel Weinkauf. My work investigates the adaptability of the marine phytoplankton to climate change and its impact on the marine carbon cycle. My research aims at studying the sediment material from the past, potentially aided with culture studies, to predict future changes in the marine carbon and carbonate cycles.

Associated members

Dr Filip Scheiner

Position: Associated postdoctoral fellow

Research interests:

Palaeoceanography
Foraminiferal shell geochemistry
Taphonomy

doc. RNDr. Katarína Holcová, CSc.

Position: Advising scientific researcher

Research interests:

Taxonomy, biostratigraphy and palaeoecology of Foraminifera and calcareous nannoplankton (Tertiary, Palaeozoic)
Actuoecology of freshwater thecamoebians

Website: https://www.natur.cuni.cz/geologie/paleontologie/holcova/doc.-rndr.-katarina-holcova-csc