Institut für Evolution und Ökologie

Verena Pietzsch

 

 

PhD candidate

78818  verena.pietzsch(@)uni-tuebingen.de

room 019, basement floor

About me

I am an enthusiastic natural scientist with a passion for complex interrelationships. I completed my bachelor's degree in biology at the University of Constance with a microscopic thesis on seed cones. With a Master's degree in geoecology, I am also at home in the geosciences and palaeontology. As part of my thesis, I worked on the biology and diversity of mosses. I then worked on setting up an interdisciplinary centre for three-dimensional X-ray imaging and microscopic photography in Tübingen and am now doing a PhD on drought stress in Mediterranean snails in the face of climate change.
As a field biologist, I am experienced in excursions, have travelled to various habitats and have an extensive understanding of ecological relationships. I combine classical morphological techniques with digital 3D methods and simulation analyses. Climatic conditions are recorded with data loggers in the field and recreated in laboratory climate experiments.
As part of my PhD project, I am investigating the relationship between shell morphology and habitat and, based on this, conducting flow analyses in the snail body. The postulated causal relationships can be empirically tested in field experiments and in a desktop climate chamber specially constructed for this purpose.