Dr. Jan Werner

Forschungsinteressen

At present I concentrate my research in zoology specifically in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology. Recent work is mainly focused on macro-ecology, theoretical ecology and evolutionary biology issues regarding different vertebrate taxa on a broad taxonomic and ecological level. I like to find general patterns, e.g. in life history traits, which are inferred from observations on extant vertebrates as birds, mammals and reptiles. I try to transfer these patterns to extinct taxa, e.g. dinosaurs. My questions of interests are: Are recent ecological patterns general? How did traits look like in extinct taxa? How did traits evolve? In my opinion multidisciplinary approaches are very promising to get new insights in such biological issues. Thus, in future I would like to use the knowledge I got during my studies to focus in more detail on the question how general patterns might be explained and how they evolved adding physiological and genetic approaches.

Key techniques:

databases, statistics, comparative analyses, individual based/mathematical modelling

Research system/organism:

birds, reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals (vertebrates in general)

Projects

Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: The Evolution of Gigantism
http://www.sauropod-dinosaurs.uni-bonn.de/