I am an Associate Member of iDiv and a PostDoc in the Experimental Interaction Ecology group led by Nico Eisenhauer in Leipzig, Germany, where I am studying 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 11/2018 | PostDoc with Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer at iDiv and Leipzig University |
| 02/2017 - 10/2018 | PostDoc with Prof. Dr. Markus Fischer at the University of Bern & Dr. Pete Manning at the BiK-F in Frankfurt |
| 03/2016 - 01/2017 | PostDoc in the BEFmate project, with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brose & Dr. Björn Rall |
| 01/2016 - 02/2016 | PhD 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 - 02/2016 | PhD 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)" |
| 03/2012 | Diploma in Biology at TU Darmstadt (with honor) |
| 08/2011 - 03/2012 | Diploma candidate in the "Systemic Conservation Biology" group of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brose, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen as a student at TU Darmstadt |
| 04/2010 - 03/2012 | Scholarship from Evangelisches Studienwerk e.V. Villigst |
| 10/2007 - 03/2012 | Study of Biology (diploma) at TU Darmstadt; main subjects: ecology, plant physiology and botany |
- 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 am coordinating 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 study global-change impacts on multitrophic communities and ecosystem functioning. Here, I combine 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 investigate 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 bioRxiv preprint connects 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.
35. Antunes, A.C., Gauzens, B., Brose, U., Potapov, A.,Jochum, M., Santini, L., Eisenhauer, N., Ferlian, O., Cesarz, S., Scheu, S. & Hirt, M.R. (accepted) Environmental drivers of local abundance-mass scaling in soil animal communities. Oikos, doi:
34. Jochum, M. (accepted) 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
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
Editor Roles| from 02/2020 | Associate Editor with Ecology and Evolution |
| 2019 - 2020 | Collection Editor for "Soil biodiversity" collection at Frontiers for Young Minds |
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
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 Theses13. 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
- Seminar, M.Sc "Biodiversity & ecosystem functioning", Leipzig University, 2020-2021
- Seminar, B.Sc "Einführung in die Ökologie", Leipzig University, 2019 & 2020
- 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
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
Selected media coverage of Nature Ecology & Evolution article (2020)
Front. Young Minds blog post "Soils are alive", (2020)
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
Conference Sessions
Upscaling biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research
December 2018, Thematic Session (with Anne Ebeling and Pete Manning) at BES annual meeting, Birmingham, UK
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
Dr. Malte Jochum (Dipl.-Biol.)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Puschstrasse 4
04103 Leipzig, Germany
phone : +49 341 97 33193
mail@maltejochum.de