Research in the Largest Ecosystem of the World

02 October 2019/Kiel. With her maps of ocean floors in the 1950s and 1960s, US geologist Marie Tharp (1920-2006) made a major contribution to drawing scientific attention to this previously unknown part of the Earth's surface. In keeping with this, the 30th edition of the lecture series named after ...

Scientists recovering the water sampler used to collect ocean samples. Photo: Marie Cuvelier

Viruses as Modulators of Interactions in Marine Ecosystems

26 September 2019 / Kiel. Viruses are mainly known as pathogens – often causing death. However, scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel working with other German and international collaborators are showing how viruses influence the biology of living marine predators. This...

Maintenance of an oceanographic mooring in the tropical Atlantic. Data from such long-term observations help to detect changes in the oceans and to estimate future developments. They are important contributions to the current Special Report of the IPCC. Photo: Michael Schneider / FS METEOR

Focusing on the long-term memory of our climate system

25 September 2019 / Kiel / Potsdam. Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the Special Report on Climate Change and the Cryosphere. For this Special Report, more than 100 scientists from more than 30 countries assessed the latest scientific knowledge about the physical...

The three-dimensional representation of the sponge tissue illustrates the close contact of sponge cells (red) with the bacteria (turquoise) living in the sponge.. Photo: Martin T. Jahn/GEOMAR

Symbiosis as a tripartite relationship

- Joint press release by Kiel University and the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel - 24 September 2019/Kiel. Sponges form an extensive animal phylum with over 7,500 species worldwide, which occur in a wide range of habitats in the ocean. A special feature of this animal phylum is thei...