Our research focusses at the interface of Evolutionary Ecology, Genetics and Functional Biodiversity research. We aim to understand the fundamental ecological, behavioral, chemical and genetic/genomic processes that drive and limit adaptive evolution to maintain ecosystem functions and wildlife health. Details on current projects, target species, methods and technologies used to achieve our goals, as well as on our team can be found here:

Prof. Dr. Simone Sommer	Conservation Genomics and EcoHealth
Prof. Dr. Manfred Ayasse	Chemical Ecology
Prof. Dr. Lena Wilfert	Functional Biodiversity
apl. Prof. Dr. Marco Tschapka	Tropical Ecology

Recently published research (2024-2025)

Doublet V, Doyle TD, Carvell C, Brown MJF, Wilfert L (2025). Host ecology and phylogeny shape the temporal dynamics of social bee viromes. Nature Communications 16: 2207. 

Fleischer R, Jones C, Ledezma-Campos P, Czirják GÁ, Sommer S, Gillespie TR, Vicente-Santos A (2024) Gut microbial shifts in vampire bats linked to immunity due to changed diet in human disturbed landscapes. Science of the Total Environment, 907, 167815. 

Fleischer R, Eibner GJ, Schwensow NI, Paraskevopoulou S, Mayer G, Corman VM, Drosten C, Wilhelm K, Heni AC*, Sommer S*, Schmid DW* (2024) Immunogenetic-pathogen networks shrink in Tome’s spiny rat, a generalist rodent inhabiting disturbed landscapes. Communications Biology. * shared senior authors, contributed equally to the study.

Fackelmann G, Pham CK, Rodríguez Y, Mallory ML, Provencher JF, Baak JE, Sommer S (2023) Current levels of microplastic pollution impact wild seabird gut microbiomes. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 7, 698-706.

Meyer M*, Schmid DW*, Baldwin H, Wilhelm K, Nkrumah EE, Badu EK, Oppong SK, Schwensow N, Vallo P, Corman VM, Tschapka M, Drosten C, Sommer S (2024) Bat species assemblage predicts coronavirus prevalence. Nature Communications.

 

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