Central America is characterized by the subduction of the oceanic Cocos Plate underneath the Caribbean Plate and Panama Microplate along the Middle America Trench, in a setting that is transitional between oceanic island arc and continental active margin subduction. In ...

I investigated how the interrelationship between parental investment and sexual immune dimorphism shape the evolution of parental care strategies within the cichlids and syngnathids. To understand why parental investment is displayed in such diversity in the animal king...

The main goal of this study is to identify the pathways, source regions and age of the waters in the Oxygen Minimum Zones in the tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. To decipher these aspects, Lagrangian trajectory analyses in conjunction with passive tracer simulation...

Methane is the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas on Earth and contributes considerably to global radiative forcing. The last IPCC assessment report 2007 assigns geological methane emissions as a significant source. This thesis therefore concentrates on ...

The present thesis investigates the potential suitability of surface water dissolved titanium (Ti) concentrations as complementary dust tracer to dissolved aluminium (Al). Both metals reflect variations in the dust deposition into the surface ocean over different time s...

Elevated environmental CO2 concentrations (hypercapnia) are a stressor that has lately received considerable attention: anthropogenic CO2 emissions are predicted to lead to a rise in surface ocean pCO2 from 0.04 kPa up to 0.08 - 0.14 kPa within this century. The increas...

Keine englischsprachige Zusammenfassung vorhanden. Eine der am häufigsten gestellten Fragen im Bezug auf die Vorhersage der Gashydratverteilung und Quantifizierung ist die nach der Beschaffenheit der Unterkante der Gas Hydrat Stabilitätszone. An deren Unterseite wird im...

The shift in the ocean's carbonate system towards a lower pH equilibrium, termed as ocean acidification, due to anthropogenic emissions of CO2 has potential influence on the formation of calcium carbonate structures in marine organisms. This is because the precipitation...

Growth, death, respiration, excretion and sedimentation describe the major rate processes of phytoplankton. These rates often scale allometrically (rate=a*mass^b). The allometric coefficient (b) describes the deviation from a linear reltionship. Literature values derive...

It is a major challenge to understand the impacts of recent climate change on zooplankton communities. The impacts of global warming are manifold and multiple factors, which drive ecological changes in zooplankton communities have to be understood. Increasing sea surfac...