Thomas Zumbrunn

Address
Universität Basel,
Zoologisches Institut
Evolutionsbiologie
Vesalgasse 1
CH-4051 Basel
Switzerland

Office
01.28

Phone
+41 (0)61 267 03 71

Fax
+41 (0)61 267 03 62

Email
t.zumbrunn-at-unibas.ch
PGP public key

May to September
Tvärminne Zoological Station
University of Helsinki
10900 Hanko
Finland
Tel +358 (0)19 280 175
Fax +358 (0)19 280 122

Thomas Zumbrunn

Thomas Zumbrunn

PhD student in the group of Prof. Dieter Ebert. Studies parasite-mediated interspecific competition in Daphnia metacommunities in Tvärminne, Southern Finland.

Current research

Daphnia babySince the late 90s, research on the Daphnia metacommunity on the skerry islands of the Tvärminne archipelago (Southern Finland) has been focussing on population dynamics and the interplay with parasites, inbreeding depression and local adaptation. Most experimental studies examining these factors attempted to shed light on the intraspecific (i.e. inter-clonal) variation of single Daphnia species.

In my PhD, I will shift the view from the species to the community level and try to disentangle the factors that influence interspecific competition between the locally co-occurring species Daphnia longispina and D. magna. The main experiments focus on the question how the microsporidian parasite Octosporea bayeri might mediate interspecific competition.

Other study organisms

GNU/Linux[FSF Associate Member] I'm an advocate of free software ("free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer"), associate member of the Free Software Foundation and a passionate user of the GNU/Linux operating system.

Curriculum vitae

2004 Diploma in Biology (Plant Ecology) at the University of Basel
2005 - present PhD student at the University of Basel

Memberships

Code

  • R ports of the Matlab files accompanying Kokko H (2007) Modelling for Field Biologists (and Other Interesting People), Cambridge University Press.

Publications

  • Hättenschwiler S, Zumbrunn T (2006) Hemiparasite abundance in an alpine treeline ecotone increases in response to atmospheric CO2 enrichment. Oecologia 147:47-52 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-005-0255-5
  • Conen F, Yakutin MV, Zumbrunn T, Leifeld J (2005) Organic carbon dynamics on recently exposed glacial till. Accepted in European Journal of Soil Science DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2389.2006.00864.x