Institute of ecology

Ecology has the longest possible tradition in Jena since it was here that the term «Oecologie» was coined in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel to describe a new branch of biological sciences that deals with the interactions between organisms and their environment.

Today the 1968 founded Institute of Ecology in Jena consists of three research units with in all six research groups and a total of about 90 staff members and students working on their dissertation or Master thesis. Research emphases are on functional biodiversity, evolutionary behavioural ecology, relevance of microorganisms for biogeochemical dynamics, polar ecology, succession, and application of multivariate statistics for ecosystem analyses. Together with the two Max Planck Institutes for Chemical Ecology (founded 1996) and for Biogeochemistry (founded 1997) Jena has developed to a centre of ecological research in Germany.