Daniel Liesner

🌊🌿🧬 Looking for a PhD candidate 🧬🌿🌊

Exciting opportunity to work with us @geomarkiel.bsky.social on heat adaptation of Baltic Fucus, coupling genomics with experimental approaches! Experience in molecular biology and bioinformatics very welcome

Closing date 31 August

www.geomar.de/en/karriere/...

Aquarium with Baltic Sea invertebrates

Researchers in front of KOB facility in Kiel

Taxonomist Renate Schütt in front of tables with outreach materials

Tank with Baltic Sea invertebrates

Busy week Fucus sampling with our colleagues @gloriareithmaier.bsky.social @lies-nerd.bsky.social @karikaphegyi.bsky.social and lots of others for #Fubluc and getting ready for outreach with kids for #TheOceanRaceEurope @geomarkiel.bsky.social

Fucus algal meadow in the Baltic Sea

Doctoral position on genomic basis of Fucus (brown algal) local adaptation - join our exciting #Fubluc team! Fully funded for 3.5 years & we also consider candidates with strong molecular or bioinformatic skillls but no marine / algal experience, see www.geomar.de/en/karriere/...

Maybe I should legally change my name now 👀🐟

Even though sea stars were critically underrepresented, I had a blast at #ITRS2025 in Brest! 🌊🌡️⭐
First conference, first Bluesky post and somehow, I now have a soft spot for kelp.🌱 Shoutout to @lies-nerd.bsky.social , @frankmelzner.bsky.social , Mark Lenz, and all the lovely people I got to meet!

Welcome address with slide showing that 383 participants attended from 28 countries

Title slide of my talk on Molecular control and ecological relevance of asexual reproduction in the split-fan kelp Laminaria pallida

Display of maritime-themed pottery art with me looking in a mirror framed by octopus arms

Gala dinner tables in front of a large aquarium with seaweeds and fish

Had too much fun at #ITRS2025 to be active online, so Hi from the early train leaving Brest! It was an absolute pleasure to see so many colleagues, present novel results and represent team @geomarkiel.bsky.social with @frankmelzner.bsky.social @katjasee.bsky.social Looking forward to next time!

Anne Salomon taking us on a marvelous deep dive through time, recontextualising people’s relationship with coastal ecosystems #ITRS2025 #marineecology 🧪🦪🌱🎣 @ifremer.bsky.social @ofbiodiversite.bsky.social @sbroscoff.bsky.social @thembauk.bsky.social

Researcher in front of mesocosm facility at Geomar explaining experment on Fucus blue carbon to Kiel Week visitors.

Researcher showing marine hydrozoans to visitors of RV Alkor with a microscope.

Open Ship on RV Alkor in Kiel, image of the ship.

Still 5 hours left to meet us and various marine critters on board if RV Alkor & the Kiel Outdoor Benthocosms with an experiment on carbon storage potential of brown algae with @lies-nerd.bsky.social @geomarkiel.bsky.social #FUBLUC - and the sun is out now!

The Atlantic's chilling secret: A century of data reveals ocean current collapse A century-old mystery of a stubborn cold patch in the North Atlantic is finally being unraveled. A new study links this anomaly to a long-term weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulat...

A study confirms what we have long argued: the spectacular Atlantic 'cold blob' is the result of a slowing of the Atlantic overturning circulation #AMOC, which transports warm waters into that region. That's the only part of Earth that resisted #globalwarming. 🌊
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

Seaweed conservation ‘inadequate’ to fight alarming loss, report finds The balance of marine algae is at risk but barely mentioned in policy discussions, researchers say

From disappearing #seaweed beds, to invasive #sargassum blooms… fascinating article from @financialtimes.com, featuring our Dr Yanna Alexia Fidai, which examines how human activity is disrupting the balance of marine algae across the globe: www.ft.com/content/b815...

Turning the Tide: A 2°C Increase in Heat Tolerance Can Halve Climate Change‐Induced Losses in Four Cold‐Adapted Kelp Species Our model findings highlight the need for a two-pronged approach to conserve cold-adapted kelp forests: stringent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in line with the SSP1-1.9 scenario, and strate...

Boosting thermal tolerance could help cold-water kelps persist in areas that are getting warmer.
The challenge is how to reach a higher tolerance but it shows that it is worth the effort. Climate change mitigation is key
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Mesocosm tanks with cylinders containing pieces of macroalgae.

Students standing around a PAM instrument.

Cylinder clise-up with macroalgae in mesocosm tank.

Finally some practical #bioc-202 work for our MSc students in Biological Oceanography at #Geomar! Exposing bladderwrack populations to heat stress regimes to study photophysiology & local adaptation! Real science projects to support meadow conservation #ANK #FUBLUC with @lies-nerd.bsky.social

This statement about the transphobic Supreme Court ruling by the UK's Crab Museum (yes a museum about crabs) is better than 99% of the statements I've seen on the topic

www.crabmuseum.org/visit

🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀

#PhycologyFriday, from one of my favourite spots, from the wave exposed shores of northern Norway - with a mosaic of Laminaria digitata and Alaria esculenta, with some Fucus serratus, Palmaria palmata and other macroalga in between.

The Kelp Forest Cathedral at Monterey Bay Aquarium

Waves crashing onto the rocky shore outside of the aquarium

An otter rubs his paws and winks at the camera

A hand holding seaweed above an illustration of Rockweed (Fucus distichous)

Spent the day at the @montereybayaquarium.org and was blown away by the massive exhibits, especially the giant #kelp cathedral 😍 Inspiring to see marine sci-comm done expertly, and I loved the hands-on science for the little ones! My lesson of the day: Fucus distichus grows also in the Pacific?!

Giant clone of seaweed in the Baltic Sea

"An Evolutionary Mosaic Challenges Traditional Monitoring of a Foundation Species in a Coastal Environment—The Baltic Fucus vesiculosus"

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

taking sediment cores for blue carbon via SCUBA in the Baltic Sea

and another 5-yr (!) postdoctoral position at GEOMAR Kiel on advancing seagrass assisted evolution, see details and link to apply www.geomar.de/en/karriere/.... Omics and pop genetics knowledge required, seagrass and coastal ecology desirable. @geomarkiel.bsky.social DM me for inquiries

Seagrass Zostera marina in Baltic Sea showing blue carbon, photo credit Pekka Tuuri

The GEOMAR seagrass team is hiring. Time to make coastal restoration long-term sustainable. A fully funded 4-yr PhD position on eelgrass seascape genomics in the Baltic Sea, further details see here www.geomar.de/en/karriere/... @geomarkiel.bsky.social DM me for inquiries

The new Max Planck Postdoc Program adresses young scientists.

‼️Save the date‼️The new Max Planck #Postdoc Program kicks off its first call for applications from April 1, 2025; applications can be submitted until May 13, 2025. mpg.de/en/max-planc... #ScienceCareer

🚨Preprint Alert🚨 I'm really happy to finally share our exploits in red algae and introduce the wider community to Bostrychia, the new model system we have been developing to tackle the molecular biology of red algae. Isn't she a beauty? Thread below 🧵 1/8 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Differential effects of warming on carbon budget, photosynthetic yield and biochemical composition of cold-temperate and Arctic isolates of Laminaria digitata (Phaeophyceae) Cold-temperate and Arctic hard bottom coastal ecosystems are dominated by kelp forests, which have a high biomass production and provide important eco…

New paper out! 🎉 #Kelp #carbonbudget dominated by carbon loss processes under #oceanwarming 🌡️. Differential effects on carbon allocation depend on population origin. #Laminaria @lies-nerd.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We conducted a 'classic' kelp canopy removal exp in mixed Laminaria forests in southwest UK. Results show that loss of canopy increases 5-fold the light reaching the reef which leads to 7-fold increase in understorey algae & 9-fold increase in kelp recruits; ms: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Thanks a lot :)

Extinction of experience among ecologists Fieldwork-based research and education in ecology are under multiple threats and are progressively declining. We call for greater attention to this ongoing loss of direct field experience within the ecology community, as it could have widespread consequences for science and education, ultimately hindering efforts to address the ongoing biodiversity crisis.

Where are all the field studies?

This ⬇️ important but rather depressing paper describes how conducting, & crucially initiating, field studies is becoming harder & rarer.

A short 🧵 (and a call for more fieldwork)
www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Hi, I'd love to join!

Photograph of a yellow golden bull kelp float with olive green fronds flowing behind it. The water as seen from the surface is grey blue

Bull Kelp (Nereocystis leutkeana) portrait for #PhycologyFriday

Graphical abstract outlining the female-like ground state of giant kelp gametophyte morphology, which is repressed by the male V-chromosome to activate male development, or complemented by the female U-chromosome to form a functional female.

Our results suggest that the phenotype of our feminised males is an approximation of a "ground state" which is normally complemented by the female U-chromosome providing specific functions to produce a functional female, or fully overridden by a dominant V-chromosome to trigger male development.

Male development required more species-specific and fast-evolving genes than female development. In comparison, female-biased genes were more conserved. Regulatory networks related to male development contained more than half of the giant kelp transcriptome and were enriched in regulatory genes.

Thanks to the uncoupling of phenotypic and genotypic sex in the feminised variants, we could identify core gene sets that are presumably crucial for both male and female phenotype expression.