Research interests

Stand: 1/2011 ginkgo amsel beltr

I am a coworker with the working group Invertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoclimatology of the Institute for Geosciences, University of Tübingen (see also Anita Roth-Nebelsick, Martin Ebner and Christopher Traiser).

Fundamental research

  • Mechanisms, failure and repair mechanisms of water transport in fossil and extant vascular plants: Development of mathematical models, which describe the relevant processes.

  • Description of the gas exchange between atmosphere and leaves of fossil and extant plants with mathematical models. These models can be used to reconstruct palaeoatmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations or palaeotemperatures from leafanatomic data.

  • Development of mathematical models, describing persistence, stability and diffusional behaviour of air bubbles which are attached to fur or plumage of animals with an aquatic life style.
    DFG-Reserach Project Analysis of drag-reducing air-water interfaces: Identifying technical surfaces which are able to hold persistent air layers according to immersed biological objects (Cooperation with AG Barthlott, Nees Institute for Biodiversity of Plants, University of Bonn, http://www.nees.uni-bonn.de)

Applied research

consisting partially in the transfer of results from fundamental research (see above).
  • Bionics (Biomimetics): Development of textiles which are able to pipe fluids in an energetic self-sufficient way. (Partially in collaboration with the Institut für Textil- und Verfahrenstechnik at Denkendorf (near Stuttgart) and Industry Partners.)

  • Application of research results from plant physiology to engineering.

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General research interests

Application of methods from Physics and Mathematics to problems in Palaeontology and Biology.

Geology, Palaeontology and Biology have evolved away from their descriptive roots and develop towards quantitative methods as a means of describing the concepts and processes they do explore. There are mainly two reasons for the increasing use of methods from Physics and Mathematics:
  • First, quantitative treatments do necessarily make use of the underlying processes from Physics, Chemistry or Physical Chemistry,

  • Second, during the centuries, Theoretical and Mathematical Physics have accumulated a rich variety of mathematical models which are well suited for phenomenological modelling purposes.

Most Geologists, Palaeontologists and Biologists accept this line of reasoning immediately. Their majority, however, views mathematical models merely as a vehicle to quantify intuitively formed hypotheses and feels not very comfortable with the Physicists firm belief in the predictive power of their theories, a belief which has formed during centuries, especially after the success of Newtons theory of gravitation. Since then, physical theories have often profited from critical review of apparent mathematical artefacts which gave rise to fruitful (and sometimes surprising) insights into quite unexpected connections between theory and reality.