Malte Jochum
Welcome to my website

I am a PostDoc in the Experimental Interaction Ecology group led by Nico Eisenhauer at iDiv in Leipzig, Germany, where I am studying the impacts of invasive earthworms on North American forests as part of the EcoWorm project.

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 marine, freshwater and terrestrial systems in temperate, boreal and tropical zones. 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 11/2018PostDoc 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 the 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
  • As a PostDoc within the EcoWorm project, I am investigating the multitrophic, community-scale impacts of invasive earthworms on northern North American forest systems.
  • For my PostDoc in Bern, I related biodiversity experiments to real-world ecosystems in order to contribute to clarifying the relevance of biodiversity experiments for ecosystem management.
  • For my PostDoc within 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, 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 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. We are currently preparing a manuscript on length-mass regressions of temperate and tropical terrestrial macro-invertebrates, with Esra Sohlström as the first and myself as the senior author.
  • 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.
Peer-reviewed Publications

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. (accepted) Land-use intensity alters biodiversity - ecosystem function - service networks. PNAS, doi:

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 02/2020Associate Editor with Ecology and Evolution
2019 - 2020Collection Editor for "Soil biodiversity" collection at Frontiers for Young Minds
Invited Talks

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

Outreach and selected Media coverage

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. (provisionally accepted). How introduced earthworms alter ecosystems. Front. Young Minds,

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

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

Dr. Malte Jochum (Dipl.-Biol.)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Deutscher Platz 5e
04103 Leipzig, Germany

phone : +49 341 97 33173
mail[DELETE-THIS]@maltejochum.de