The Gsell junior group focuses on the role of fungal parasites of phytoplankton on the structure and composition of pelagic plankton communities.
Parasites have direct, detrimental effects on their hosts, but they can also have beneficial effects: on consumers, as they provide food, and for ecosystem properties, as they may maintain diversity by changing the outcome of competition.
We study how biotic and abiotic environments affect phytoplankton (host) and chytrid (parasite) interactions, and how these interactions may, in turn, influence emerging ecosystem properties.
Current research aims to identify and quantify direct and indirect interactions of phytoplankton parasites with other compartments in freshwater plankton interaction networks. This involves the assembly of a long-term dataset of several host-parasite pairs based on the sample collection of Lake Müggelsee (Germany), and laboratory experiments on the effect of chytrid parasitism on the outcome of host resource competition as well as the effect of added producer diversity on disease spread.
Further research interests include winter ecology in temporally ice-covered lakes and critical transitions in lakes.
Left: Synedra sp cell with two chytrid infections
Right: Asterionella formosa colonies with infections
Expertise
- Host-parasite interactions in aquatic ecosystems
- Phytoplankton and chytrid ecology
- Ecosystem functions of parasites
- Drivers of intra- and interspecific diversity in plankton communities
- Early-warning indicators and alternative stable states in lakes
Current group-members:
This group is associated to the Van Donk Group.
