Malte Jochum
Welcome to my Website

I am a junior professor for Above-belowground interaction ecology at the University of Würzburg, and I study global-change impacts on multitrophic communities and ecosystem functioning.

As a community ecologist, I am broadly interested in anthropogenic impacts on natural ecosystems. Across ecosystem types, anthropogenic drivers such as climate change, land-use change, eutrophication and species invasions trigger changes in communities of living organisms. Biodiversity, community composition, body-size structure, food-web structure and fluxes of energy through trophic networks are altered in response to biotic and abiotic stressors with severe consequences for the functions and services provided by natural ecosystems.

Throughout my scientific career, I have worked on terrestrial (both above- and belowground), marine, and freshwater systems in temperate, boreal, and tropical biomes. Over the years, I have conducted extensive field surveys, in-situ mesocosm experiments, laboratory experiments, and ecological synthesis. Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning theory, food-web theory, metabolic theory and ecological stoichiometry theory form the theoretical background for most of my work.

Curriculum Vitae (short)
from 05/2023Junior professor for Above-belowground interaction ecology at the University of Würzburg
11/2018 - 04/2023PostDoc with Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer at iDiv and Leipzig University
02/2017 - 10/2018PostDoc with Prof. Dr. Markus Fischer at the University of Bern & Dr. Pete Manning at the BiK-F in Frankfurt
03/2016 - 01/2017PostDoc in the BEFmate project, with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brose & Dr. Björn Rall
01/2016 - 02/2016PhD thesis title: "Using body mass, metabolism and stoichiometry to assess ecological impacts in a changing environment." Successfully defended on Feb 15th, 2016, "summa cum laude". You can access my thesis here.
04/2012 - 02/2016PhD candidate in the "Systemic Conservation Biology" group of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brose, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen: Project B01 "Structure, stability and functioning of macro-invertebrate communities in rainforest transformation systems in Sumatra (Indonesia)" of the CRC 990 "Ecological and Socioeconomic Functions of Tropical Lowland Rainforest Transformation Systems (Sumatra, Indonesia)"
03/2012Diploma in Biology at TU Darmstadt (with honor)
08/2011 - 03/2012Diploma candidate in the "Systemic Conservation Biology" group of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brose, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen as a student at TU Darmstadt
04/2010 - 03/2012Scholarship from Evangelisches Studienwerk e.V. Villigst
10/2007 - 03/2012Study of Biology (diploma) at TU Darmstadt; main subjects: ecology, plant physiology and botany
Profiles Research Activities
  • I am co-coordinating BadBug, the Bad-Lauchstädt part of The Bug-Network studying the impact of invertebrate herbivores and pathogenic fungi on plant communities and arthropod-related ecosystem functioning.
  • I coordinated the EcoStressWeb experiment in the iDiv Ecotron looking at combined effects of climate change and arthropod predation on above-belowground communities and ecosystem processes in a temperate forest soil/litter system. Check the twitter hashtag #EcoStressWeb for updates.
  • As a PostDoc in the Experimental Interaction Ecology group at iDiv, I studied global-change impacts on multitrophic communities and ecosystem functioning. Here, I combined lab experiments, field experiments, observational approaches, simulations, and ecological synthesis. Recent papers in Ecology & Evolution and Eur. J. Soil Sci. provide a comprehensive introduction to calculating energy flux through ecological communities.
  • As a PostDoc in the EcoWorm project at iDiv, I investigated the multitrophic, community-scale impacts of invasive earthworms on northern North American forest systems. A project overview has been published in Research Ideas and Outcomes. Our Oikos paper investigates earthworm-invasion effects on soil-fauna communities across size classes and biodiversity facets. A recent Biology Letters paper links belowground earthworm invasion to aboveground arthropod decline. Several other papers are in the pipeline, e.g. one on earthworm invasion impacts on energy flux through arthropod food webs.
  • As a PostDoc with the Jena Experiment in Bern, I related biodiversity experiments to real-world ecosystems in order to clarify the relevance of biodiversity experiments for real-world ecosystems. Papers from this period are e.g. published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, PNAS, and Advances in Ecological Research.
  • For my PostDoc with the BEFmate project, I focused on studying effects of community body size structure and resource stoichiometry on species richness, biomass and feeding rates of invertebrate consumers. The results are now published in the two 2017 papers in The American Naturalist and the Journal of Animal Ecology.
  • For my PhD with the EFForTS project, 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 e.g. 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. Another manuscript on length-mass regressions of temperate and tropical terrestrial macro-invertebrates, with Esra Sohlström as the first and myself as the senior author, is published in Ecology and Evolution.
  • For my diploma project, I worked with Dr. Eoin O'Gorman at Lough Hyne, 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 investigated impacts of nutrient enrichment and altered top predator population size structure on the food web of the Lough's shallow subtidal. Results from this experiment are published in our 2012 paper in Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B.
Preprint Publications

1. Gauzens, B., Rosenbaum, B., Kalinkat, G., Boy, T., Jochum, M., Kortsch, S., O'Gorman, E.J.& Brose, U. (2021) Adaptive foraging behaviour increases vulnerability to climate change. bioRxiv, doi: 10.1101/2021.05.05.442768

Peer-reviewed Publications

38. Eisenhauer, E., Ochoa-Hueso, R., Huang, Y., Barry, K.E., Gebler, A., Guerra, C.A., Hines, J., Jochum, M., Andraczek, K., Bucher, S.F., Buscot, F., Ciobanu, M., Chen, H., Junker, R., Lange, M., Lehmann, A., Rillig, M., Römermann, C., Ulrich, J., Weigelt, A., Schmidt, A. & Türke, M. (2023) Ecosystem consequences of invertebrate decline. Current Biology, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.012

37. Potapov, A., Guerra, C.A., van den Hoogen, J., Babenko, A., [...],Jochum, M., [...], Crowther, T.W., Eisenhauer, N. & Scheu, S. (2023) Globally invariant metabolism but density-diversity mismatch in springtails. Nature Communications, doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-36216-6

36. Kempel, A., Allan, E., Gossner, M.M., Jochum, M., Grace, J.B. & Wardle, D.A. (2023) From bottom-up to top-down control of invertebrate herbivores in a retrogressive chronosequence. Ecology Letters, doi: 10.1111/ele.14161

35. Antunes, A.C., Gauzens, B., Brose, U., Potapov, A.M.,Jochum, M., Santini, L., Eisenhauer, N., Ferlian, O., Cesarz, S., Scheu, S. & Hirt, M.R. (2022) Environmental drivers of local abundance-mass scaling in soil animal communities. Oikos, doi: 10.1111/oik.09735

34. Jochum, M. (2022) Heat it up to slow it down: Individual energetics reveal how warming reduces stream decomposition. Journal of Animal Ecology, doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.13775

33. Klusmann, C., Cesarz, S., Ciobanu, M., Ferlian, O., Jochum, M., Schädler, M., Scheu, S., Sünnemann, M., Wall, D.H. & Eisenhauer, N. (2022) Climate-change effects on the sex ratio of free-living soil nematodes – perspective and prospect. Soil Organisms, doi: 10.25674/so94iss1id174

32. Jochum, M., Thouvenot, L., Ferlian, O., Zeiss, R., Klarner, B., Pruschitzki, U., Johnson, E.A. & Eisenhauer, N. (2022) Aboveground impacts of a belowground invader: how invasive earthworms alter aboveground arthropod communities in a northern North American forest. Biology Letters, doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0636

31. Jochum, M., Barnes, A.D., Brose, U., Gauzens, B., Suennemann, M., Amyntas, A., & Eisenhauer, N. (2021) For flux’s sake: General considerations for energy-flux calculations in ecological communities. Ecology and Evolution, doi: 10.1002/ece3.8060

30. Jochum, M. & Eisenhauer, N. (2021) Out of the dark: using energy flux to connect above- and belowground communities and ecosystem functioning. Eur. J. Soil Sci., doi: 10.1111/ejss.13154

29. Oelmann, Y., Lange, M., Leimer, S., Roscher, C., Aburto, F., Alt, F., Bange, N., Berner, D., Boch, S., Boeddinghaus, R.S., Buscot, F., Dassen, S., De Deyn, G., Eisenhauer, N., Gleixner, G., Goldmann, K., Hölzel, N., Jochum, M., Kandeler, E., Klaus, V.H., Kleinebecker, T., Le Provost, G., Manning, P., Marhan, S., Prati, D., Schäfer, D., Schöning, I., Schrumpf, M., Schurig, E., Wagg, C., Wubet, T. & Wilcke, W. (2021) Above- and belowground biodiversity jointly tighten the P cycle in agricultural grasslands. Nature Communications, doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24714

28. Sohlström, E.H., Archer, L.C., Gallo, B., Jochum, M., Kordas, R.L., Rall, B.C., Rosenbaum, B. & O'Gorman, E.J. (2021) Thermal acclimation increases the stability of a predator-prey interaction in warmer environments. Glob. Change Biol., doi:10.1111/gcb.15715

27. Potapov, A., Schäfer, I., Jochum, M., Widyastuti, R., Eisenhauer, N. & Scheu, S. (2021) Oil palm and rubber expansion facilitates earthworm invasion in Indonesia. Biol. Invasions, doi:10.1007/s10530-021-02539-y

26. Jochum, M., Ferlian, O., Thakur, M, Ciobanu, M., Klarner, B., Salamon, J.-A., Frelich, L., Johnson, E. & Eisenhauer, N. (2021) Earthworm invasion causes declines across soil fauna size classes and biodiversity facets in northern North American forests. Oikos, doi:10.1111/oik.07867

25. Beaumelle, L., Thouvenot, L., Hines, J., Jochum, M., Eisenhauer, N. & Phillips, H. (2021) Soil fauna diversity and chemical stressors: a review of knowledge gaps and roadmap for future research. Ecography, doi:10.1111/ecog.05627

24. Felipe-Lucia, M.R., Soliveres, S., Penone, C., Fischer, M., Ammer, C., Boch, S., Boeddinghaus, R., Bonkowski, M., Buscot, F., Fiore-Donno, A.M., Frank, K., Goldman, K., Gossner, M.M., Hölzel, N., Jochum, M., Kandeler, E., Klaus, V.H., Kleinebecker, T., Leimer, S., Manning, P., Oelmann, Y., Saiz, H., Schall, P., Schloter, M., Schöning, I., Schrumpf, M., Solly, E.F., Stempfhuber, B., Weisser, W.W., Wilcke, W., Wubet, T. & Allan, E. (2020) Land-use intensity alters biodiversity - ecosystem function - service networks. PNAS, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2016210117

23. Jochum, M., Fischer, M., Isbell, F., Roscher, C., van der Plas, F., Boch, S., Boenisch, G., Buchmann, N., Catford, J.A., Cavender-Bares, J., Ebeling, A., Eisenhauer, N., Gleixner, G., Hölzel, N., Kattge, J., Klaus, V.H., Kleinebecker, T., Lange, M., Le Provost, G., Meyer, S.T., Molina-Venegas, R., Mommer, L., Oelmann, Y., Penone, C., Prati, D., Reich, P.B., Rindisbacher, A., Schäfer, D., Scheu, S., Schmid, B., Tilman, D., Tscharntke, T., Vogel, A., Wagg, C., Weigelt, A., Weisser, W.W., Wilcke, W. & Manning, P. (2020) The results of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments are realistic. Nature Ecology & Evolution, doi:10.1038/s41559-020-1280-9

22. Grass, I., Kubitza, C., Krishna, V.V., Corre, M.D., Mußhoff, O., Pütz, P., Drescher, J., Rembold, K., Ariyanti, E.S., Barnes, A.D., Brinkmann, N., Brose, U., Brümmer, B., Buchori, D., Daniel, R., Darras, K., Faust, H., Fehrmann, L., Hein, J., Hennings, N., Hidayat, P., Hölscher, D., Jochum, M., Knohl, A., Kotowska, M.M., Krashevska, V., Kreft, H., Leuschner, C., Lobite, N.J.S.; Panjaitan, R., Polle, A., Potapov, A.M., Purnama, E., Qaim, M., Röll, A., Scheu, S., Schneider, D., Tjoa, A., Tscharntke, T., Veldkamp, E. & Wollni, M. (2020) Trade-offs between multifunctionality and profit in tropical smallholder landscapes. Nature Communications, doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15013-5

21. Gallagher, R., Falster, D.S., Maitner, B., Salguero-Gomez, R., Vandvik, V., Pearse, W., Schneider, F., Kattge, J., Alroy, J., Ankenbrand, M.J., Andrew, S., Balk, M., Bland, L., Boyle, B., Bravo-Avila, C., Brennan, I., Carthey, A., Catullo, R., Cavazos, B., Chown, S., Fadrique, B., Feng, X., Halbritter, A.H., Hammock, J., Hogan, J.A., Holewa, H., Iversen, C., Jochum, M., Kearney, M., Keller, A., Mabee, P., Madin, J., Manning, P., McCormack, L., Michaletz, S., Park, D., Penone, C., Perez, T., Pineda-Munoz, S., Poelen, J.H., Ray, C., Rossetto, M., Sauquet, H., Sparrow, B., Spasojevic, M.J., Telford, R.J., Tobias, J.A., Violle, C., Walls, R., Weiss, K.C.B., Westoby, M., Wright, I. & Enquist, B. (2020) Open Science principles for accelerating trait-based science across the Tree of Life. Nature Ecology & Evolution, doi:10.1038/s41559-020-1109-6

20. Potapov, A.M., Dupérré, N., Jochum, M., Dreczko, K., Klarner, B., Barnes, A.D., Krashevska, V., Rembold, K., Kreft, H., Brose, U., Widyastuti, R., Harms, D. and Scheu, S. (2019). Functional losses in ground spider communities due to habitat‐structure degradation under tropical land‐use change. Ecology, doi:10.1002/ecy.2957

19. Schneider, F.D., Fichtmüller, D., Gossner, M.M., Güntsch, A., Jochum, M., König-Ries, B., Le Provost, G., Manning, P., Ostrowski, A., Penone, C. & Simons, N.K. (2019). Towards an Ecological Trait-data Standard. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, doi:10.1111/2041‐210X.13288

18. Manning, P., Loos, J., Barnes, A.D., Batáry, P., Bianchi, F.J.J.A., Buchmann, N., De Deyn, G.B., Ebeling, A., Eisenhauer, N., Fischer, M., Fründ, J., Grass, I., Isselstein, J., Jochum, M., Klein, A-M., Klingenberg, E.O.F., Landis, D.A., Lepš, J., Lindborg, R., Meyer, S.T., Temperton, V., Westphal, C. & Tscharntke, T. (2019). Transferring biodiversity-ecosystem function research to the management of ‘real-world’ ecosystems. Advances in Ecological Research 61, doi:10.1016/bs.aecr.2019.06.009

17. Eisenhauer, N., Schielzeth, H., Barnes, A.D., Barry, K.E., Bonn, A., Brose, U., Bruelheide, H., Buchmann, N., Buscot, F., Ebeling, A., Ferlian, O., Freschet, G.T., Giling, D.P., Hättenschwiler, S., Hillebrand, H., Hines, J., Isbell, F., Koller-France, E., König-Ries, B., de Kroon, H., Meyer, S.T., Milcu, A., Müller, J., Nock, C.A., Petermann, J.S., Roscher, C., Scherber, C., Scherer-Lorenzen, M., Schmid, B., Schnitzer, S.A., Schuldt, A., Tscharntke, T., Türke, M., van Dam, N.M., van der Plas, F., Vogel, A., Wagg, C., Wardle, D.A., Weigelt, A., Weisser, W.W., Wirth, C. & Jochum, M. (2019). A multitrophic perspective on biodiversity–ecosystem functioning research. Advances in Ecological Research 61, doi:10.1016/bs.aecr.2019.06.001

16. Archer, L.C., Sohlström, E.H., Gallo, B., Jochum, M., Woodward, G., Kordas, R.L., Rall, B.C. & O'Gorman, E.J. (2019). Consistent temperature dependence of functional response parameters and their use in predicting population abundance. Journal of Animal Ecology, doi:10.1111/1365‐2656.13060

15. Brose, U., Archambault, P., Barnes, A.D., Bersier, L.-F., Boy, T., Canning-Clode, J., Conti, E., Dias, M., Digel, C., Dissanayake, A., Flores, A.A. V., Fussmann, K., Gauzens, B., Gray, C., Häussler, J., Hirt, M.R., Jacob, U., Jochum, M., Kéfi, S., McLaughlin, O., MacPherson, M.M., Latz, E., Layer-Dobra, K., Legagneux, P., Li, Y., Madeira, C., Martinez, N.D., Mendonça, V., Mulder, C., Navarrete, S.A., O’Gorman, E.J., Ott, D., Paula, J., Perkins, D., Piechnik, D., Pokrovsky, I., Raffaelli, D., Rall, B.C., Rosenbaum, B., Ryser, R., Silva, A., Sohlström, E.H., Sokolova, N., Thompson, M.S.A., Thompson, R.M., Vermandele, F., Vinagre, C., Wang, S., Wefer, J.M., Williams, R.J., Wieters, E., Woodward, G. & Iles, A.C. (2019). Predator traits determine food-web architecture across ecosystems. Nature Ecology & Evolution, doi:10.1038/s41559-019-0899-x

14. Eisenhauer, N., Ferlian, O., Craven, D., Hines, J. & Jochum, M. (2019). Ecosystem responses to exotic earthworm invasion in northern North American forests. Research Ideas and Outcomes, doi:10.3897/rio.5.e34564

13. Sohlström, E.H., Marian, L., Barnes, A.D., Haneda, N.F., Scheu, S., Rall, B.C., Brose, U. & Jochum, M. (2018). Applying generalized allometric regressions to predict live body mass of tropical and temperate arthropods. Ecology and Evolution, doi:10.1002/ece3.4702

12.Gauzens, B., Barnes, A.D., Giling, D., Hines, J., Jochum, M., Lefcheck, J.S., Rosenbaum, B., Wang, S. & Brose, U. (2018). fluxweb: An R package to easily estimate energy fluxes in food webs. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, doi:10.1111/2041-210X.13109

11. Barnes, A.D., Jochum, M., Lefcheck, J.S., Eisenhauer, N., Scherber, C., O'Connor, M.I., de Ruiter, P. & Brose, U. (2018). Energy flux: The link between multitrophic biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, doi:10.1016/j.tree.2017.12.007

10. Scrine, J., Jochum, M., Olafsson, J. & O'Gorman, E.J. (2017). Interactive effects of temperature and habitat complexity on freshwater communities. Ecology and Evolution, doi:10.1002/ece3.3412

9. Barnes, A.D., Allen, K., Kreft, H., Corre, M.D., Jochum, M., Veldkamp, E., Clough, Y., Daniel, R., Darras, K., Denmead, L.H., Haneda, N.F., Hertel, D., Knohl, A., Martyna, M.M., Kurniawan, S., Meijide, A., Rembold, K., Prabowo, W.E., Scheider, D., Tscharntke, T. & Brose, U. (2017). Direct and cascading impacts of tropical land-use change on multi-trophic biodiversity. Nature Ecology & Evolution, doi:10.1038/s41559-017-0275-7

8. Jochum, M., Barnes, A.D., Weigelt, P., Ott, D., Rembold, K., Farajallah, A. & Brose, U. (2017). Resource stoichiometry and availability modulate species richness and biomass of tropical litter macro-invertebrates. Journal of Animal Ecology, doi:10.1111/1365-2656.12695

7. Jochum, M., Barnes, A.D., Ott, D., Lang, B., Klarner, B., Farajallah, A., Scheu, S. & Brose, U. (2017). Decreasing stoichiometric resource quality drives compensatory feeding across trophic levels in tropical litter invertebrate communities. The American Naturalist, doi:10.1086/691790

6. 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

5. 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

4. 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, doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2015.08.033

3. 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, doi:10.1016/j.cois.2015.04.017

2. 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

1. Jochum, M., Schneider, F.D., Crowe, T.P., Brose, U. & 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, doi:10.1098/rstb.2012.0237

Editor Roles
from 06/2023Associate Editor with Journal of Animal Ecology
2020 - 2023Associate Editor with Ecology and Evolution
2019 - 2020Collection Editor for "Soil biodiversity" collection at Frontiers for Young Minds
Invited Talks

Global change in above-belowground multitrophic communities
December 21, 2022 at Institute of Ecology, University of Bremen
Invited by Marko Rohlfs

Using energy flux to quantify global-change impacts on plant-enemy interactions
September 01, 2022 at INTECOL 2022, Geneva
Invited by Anne Kempel, Eric Allan, Gemma Rutten, Susan Everingham

Joint impacts of climate and predation on multitrophic communities and ecosystem functioning
March 23, 2021 at iDiv, Leipzig
Invited by Ulrich Brose

The results of biodiversity-​ecosystem functioning experiments are realistic
September 28, 2020 at ETH, Zürich
Invited by Nina Buchmann

Bridging the gap: Linking the Jena Experiment to “real-world” ecosystems
March 15, 2018 at iDiv, Leipzig
Invited by Nico Eisenhauer

Bridging the gap: Linking the Jena Experiment to “real-world” ecosystems
April 13, 2017 at BiK-F Frankfurt
Invited by Pete Manning

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

Teaching Philosophy

My own desire to pursue an academic career is driven by my curiosity about the natural world surrounding and sustaining us and the motivation to enable others to pursue a career in ecology – within or beyond academia. For me, successful teaching is about inspiring people to be interested in a subject, enabling them to ask interesting questions, and providing them with the resources to start their learning endeavor. To be able to effectively teach, I believe that teachers need to understand the students‘ learning motivation and perspective. Throughout my career, I had the opportunity to learn from and teach a diverse set of people, with very different backgrounds and in different settings. Embracing the diversity of people, their abilities and challenges, and the diversity of teaching methods is the key to efficient teaching. Teaching should always be conducted in an open, social, and communicative manner enabling students to overcome misunderstandings and concerns to fully unlock their own curiosity. For me, highly-interactive forms of teaching are most effective, facilitating both a collaborative environment in class and a deeper level of understanding. Both supervised students and participants of my courses have given very positive feedback regarding the content and structure of my teaching, as well as the efficient use of examples. My own experience as a student and teacher has reinforced the notion that active experience of scientific processes is essential to gain a deep understanding of acquired knowledge and create an enjoyable learning environment. Thus, excursions, practical labs, digital learning, and collaborative work are essential parts of successful teaching.

Supervised Theses

13. M.Sc. Susanne Jahn, "Experimental impacts of temperature and predator diversity on collembola communities and decomposition rates", Leipzig, 2022-present

12. PhD Advisory Committee Member of Angelos Amyntas, "Multi-trophic energy fluxes in soil food webs along plant-diversity-productivity gradients", Leipzig, 2022-present

11. Research Intern Benjamin Bischoff, “Combined effects of drought and invertebrate predation on above- and belowground decomposition”, Leipzig, 2021

10. B.Sc. Ines Laude, “Die Reaktion von Jungpflanzen von Fagus sylvatica und Quercus petraea auf unterschiedliche Wasserversorgung im Ecotron”, Leipzig, 2021

9. State Examination (Biology teacher) Merlin Helle, “Experimentelle Untersuchung zum Einfluss von Klima und Prädation auf Bodenmesofauna Gemeinschaften”, Leipzig, 2021

8. B.Sc. Therese Ziegler, "Effects of nutrient enrichment and top-predator size structure on energy flux in a marine benthic community", Leipzig, 2021

7. B.Sc. Lotte Horn, "Impacts of invasive earthworms on plant communities in North American forest ecosystems", Leipzig, 2019

6. B.Sc. Sophia Findeisen, "The effects of invasive earthworms on below-ground invertebrate communities and ecosystem functioning in North American forest ecosystems", Leipzig, 2019

5. B.Sc. Romy Zeiss, "Impacts of earthworm invasion on aboveground invertebrate communities in North American forest ecosystems", Leipzig, 2019

4. PhD Advisory Committee Member of Marie Sünnemann, "Effects of land use on soil functioning in a changing world", Leipzig, 2019-present

3. M.Sc. Esra Sohlström, "Impacts of environmental warming and thermal acclimation on predator-prey interactions", Göttingen, 2015, received the 2016 GfÖ M.Sc. / Diplom award

2. M.Sc. Lucas Jurkschat, "Allometric scaling relationships in the morphology of temperate and tropical arthropods", Göttingen, 2014/15

1. M.Sc. Steffen Mumme, "Alteration of functional diversity along a land-use intensification gradient in Sumatra, Indonesia", Göttingen, 2013/14

Courses taught
  • Lecture, M.Sc
    • "Multitrophic BEF relationships and multifunctionality" for Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer, Leipzig University, 2020-2022
  • Lecture, B.Sc
    • "Nahrungsnetze" for Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer, Leipzig University, 2019-2022
  • Lecture, B.Sc
    • "Prädation, Weidegang und Krankheiten" for Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer, Leipzig University, 2022
  • Seminar, M.Sc
    • "Biodiversity & ecosystem functioning", Leipzig University, 2020-2021
  • Seminar, B.Sc
    • "Einführung in die Ökologie", Leipzig University, 2019, 2020 & 2022
  • B.Sc-level courses
    • on "Introduction to Statistics", "Introduction to R" and "Introduction to Statistics in R", iDiv, Leipzig, 2019-2022
  • Statistics B.Sc
    • "Statistik für Biologen", Göttingen & Bern University 2013, 2017, 2018
Outreach and Selected Media Coverage

MDR Aktuell - Radiointerview: Warum ist Biodiversität für uns so wichtig? (2022) .

Selected media coverage of Biology Letters article (2022) in National Geographic, CBC News, MDR Wissen , National Public Radio, and DLF Kultur.

Mitteldeutsche Zeitung (2021), “Wer frisst wen und wie oft?” - coverage of the EcoStressWeb experiment in the iDiv Ecotron

Buehler, J., Invasive earthworms are bad for everyone. (2021) Front. Ecol. Envir., doi: 10.1002/fee.2339

Selected media coverage of Nature Ecology & Evolution article (2020)

Jochum, M. Nature Research Ecology & Evolution Community blog post "Bridging the gap: Linking biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments to real-world ecosystems", (2020)

Front. Young Minds blog post "Soils are alive", (2020)

Jochum, M. & Eisenhauer, N. (2020). How introduced earthworms alter ecosystems. Front. Young Minds, 8:534345. doi: 10.3389/frym.2020.534345

Jochum, M., Phillips, H. & Beugnon, R. (2019). Hosting "Soil biodiversity" collection. Front. Young Minds

Jochum, M. (2019). MDR Wissen - Radio Interview: Tausende Wissenschaftler rufen den Klima-Notfall aus. MDR

Jochum, M. & Ferlian, O. (2019). Garten findet Stadt, Jena, interactive presentation, "Den Regenwürmern auf der Spur - dort Fluch, hier Segen."

Jochum, M. (2018). iDiv News item: Research results re-edited for children. iDiv

Jochum, M. & Barnes, A.D. (2018). Is Arthropod Biodiversity on the Rainforest Floor Threatened by Rubber and Palm-Oil Plantations? Front. Young Minds, 6:72, doi:10.3389/frym.2018.00072

Conference Sessions

Upscaling biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research December 2018, Thematic Session (with Anne Ebeling and Pete Manning) at BES annual meeting, Birmingham, UK

Conference Talks and Posters

How invasive earthworms alter aboveground arthropod communities in a northern North American forest March 13-15, 2023, oral presentation at Third Global Soil Biodiversity Conference, Dublin, Ireland

Aboveground impacts of a belowground invader – earthworm invasion alters aboveground arthropod communities in a northern North American forest November 21-25, 2022, oral presentation at joint SFE2 GFÖ EEF Meeting, Metz, France

Joint impacts of climate and predation on multitrophic interactions and ecosystem functioning June 7-9, 2022, oral presentation at Frontiers in experimental research on changing environments, Leipzig, Germany

EcoStressWeb - Investigating joint impacts of climate and biodiversity change on multitrophic interactions and ecosystem functioning April 25-26, 2022, oral presentation (remote) at iDiv conference 2022

Aboveground impacts of a belowground invader: how invasive earthworms alter aboveground arthropod communities in a northern North American forest August 31, 2021, oral presentation (remote) at GFÖ annual meeting 2021

Calculating energy flux through ecological communities - challenges and opportunities December 14-18, 2020, oral presentation (remote) at BES annual meeting 2020, online Festival of Ecology

Earthworm invasion heavily impacts soil-fauna communities of northern North American forests December 10-13, 2019, oral presentation at BES annual meeting 2019, Belfast, Northern Ireland-UK

Responses of forest soil fauna communities to invasion of exotic earthworms September 9-13, 2019, oral presentation at GFÖ annual meeting 2019, Münster, Germany

Effects of exotic earthworm invasion on forest soil fauna communities August 29-30, 2019, oral presentation at iDiv conference 2019, Leipzig, Germany

Do biodiversity experiments accurately represent "real-world" ecosystems? December 19, 2018, oral presentation (remote) at BES annual meeting 2018, Birmingham, UK

Linking biodiversity experiments to "real-world" ecosystems December 11, 2018, oral presentation at iDiv Conference 2018, Leipzig, Germany

Are the plant communities of biodiversity experiments representative of naturally assembled ecosystems? February 14-16, 2018, oral presentation at Biology 18, Neuchatel, Switzerland

Are the plant communities of biodiversity experiments representative of naturally assembled ecosystems? December 11-14, 2017, oral presentation at Ecology Across Borders meeting, Ghent, Belgium

Bridging the gap: Linking the Jena Experiment to 'real-world' ecosystems February 7-8, 2017, poster presentation at 15 Years Jena Experiment Symposium, Jena, Germany

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

Malte Jochum

Prof. Dr. Malte Jochum (Dipl.-Biol.)
University of Würzburg
John-Skilton-Strasse 4a
- Hubland Nord -
97074 Würzburg

phone : +49 151 285 94 370
mail[DELETE-THIS]@maltejochum.de