Katharina Teschke

Research Interests

I am primarily interested in spatio-temporal patterns of community structure and population distribution and abundance in response to environmental factors. In recent years, my interest has increasingly focused on marine spatial planning and how best to protect and manage ecosystems.

Projects

Weddell Sea Marine Protected Area (WSMPA): The Global Biodiversity Framework includes the “30×30” conservation target, which aims to protect 30% of the Earth’s land and sea through the establishment of protected areas. However, we are still far from this goal. Currently, ocean protection stands at only 8.2%, with many small-scale, multi-use MPAs primarily within national jurisdictions. The WSMPA project offers the opportunity to add a large MPA in international waters to the global network, and the pristine state of the Weddell Sea makes its protection all the more urgent.

CRITTERBASE: As human impact on marine ecosystems grows, understanding, managing, and protecting these systems becomes increasingly crucial. Research on marine life and its interactions is essential to tackle these challenges, but data are often diverse and scattered. To address this, scientists and decision makers need a versatile tool for compiling, synthesising, and managing marine biological data transparently and efficiently. We developed CRITTERBASE, an operational database and ecological information system, to meet these needs with high-quality assurance.

Weddell Sea Observatory of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Change (WOBEC): Accelerating climate change around Antarctica prompts the need for sustained monitoring to assess how ecosystems are affected by declining sea ice, ocean warming, and ocean acidification. Currently, there is no systematic ecosystem monitoring in the Weddell Sea. To address this, scientists from 11 institutes in 8 countries join forces together with stakeholders from various sectors to develop a monitoring framework for a new observatory. Once established, this observatory will be a key component of the Weddell Sea MPA Research and Monitoring Plan.

Highlighted Publications

On marine protected area planning:

Teschke, K., Brtnik, P., Hain, S., Herata, H., Liebschner, A., Pehlke, H. and Brey, T. (2020). Planning marine protected areas under the CCAMLR regime – The case of the Weddell Sea (Antarctica). Marine Policy, 124, 104370

Teschke, K., Konijnenberg, R., Pehlke, H. and Brey, T. (2022). Exploring spatial similarity and performance among marine protected area planning scenarios: The case of the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Global Ecology and Conservation, 38, e02238.

On data compilations and infrastructures:

Teschke, K., Pehlke, H., Siegel, V., Bornemann, H., Knust, R. and Brey, T. (2020). An integrated compilation of data sources for the development of a marine protected area in the Weddell Sea. Earth System Science Data, 12 (2).

Teschke, K., Kraan, C., Kloss, P., Andresen, H., Beermann, J., Fiorentino, D., Gusky, M., Hansen, M., Konijnenberg, R., Koppe, R., Pehlke, H., Piepenburg, D., Sabbagh, T., Wrede, A., Brey, T. and Dannheim, J. (2022). CRITTERBASE, a science-driven data warehouse for marine biota. Scientific Data, 9 (483).