Alexa Wrede

BG Biogeosciences

The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Alexa Wrede for the poster/PICO entitled:

A novel approach to predict bioirrigation and increase predictability of biogeochemical cycling (Wrede, A.; Dannheim, J.; Beermann, J.; Gutow, L.; Asmus, R.; Asmus, H.; Wiltshire, K. H.; Brey, T.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

Alexa Wrede recently received her PhD from the University of Bremen after conducting her PhD project in the functional ecology working group of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven. During her project Alexa Wrede investigated methods to quantify the macrofaunal impact on biogeochemical turnover in the sediments of the German Bight.
Her poster at the EGU 2018 presents the newly developed index of bioirrigation potential (IPc) that is based on body mass, abundance, burrow type, feeding type and injection pocket depth of bottom dwelling animals. Results from both community and single-species experimental incubations indicate that the irrigation potential is able to predict the bioirrigation rate in different sediment types (mud, fine sand, sand) and that the irrigation potential increases the predictability of biogeochemical cycling across different environmental conditions compared to the previously applied trait based bioturbation potential (BPc). Further the results demonstrated that not only a description of environmental conditions but macrofaunal activity is needed to reliably predict biogeochemical turnover.