Dr. Jochen Fründ

Department of Biometry and Environmental System Analysis

Tennenbacher Straße 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany
Room 03.053

email: jochen.fruend(a)biom.uni-freiburg.de
website / blog: https://jochenfruend.wordpress.com/
phone: +49 761 203-3747
fax: +49 761 203-3751

Research Interests

 

Trying to summarize my research with a few key words, ecological networks, specialization and insect diversity might do.

My research interests are based on my fascination for nature and biodiversity. I am puzzled by how many different species (especially insects) can be found on our planet and how many stories can be told when you look at them closely. In my view, fundamental research that keeps in mind the current environmental challenges is the way we can move towards a better understanding of nature, which will prove useful for a sustainable future (but has also merits in its on right).

I try my best to integrate observation, experimentation and theory to achieve this, mostly asking questions about species communities, interspecific interactions and environmental change. One theme is to identify mechanistic predictors of dynamics and variation in biotic niches and interaction patterns on different scales. I search for ecological conclusions that give sense in light of both theory and natural history, and that are unlikely to be caused by sampling artifacts. Much of my work so far deals with plant-pollinator interactions in a community context, especially with bees and their effects on plants. However, I have also worked about ants, dragonflies and damselflies, plants, birds and neotropical bats, and caterpillars and their parasitoids.

  

Curriculum Vitae

I am a postdoc / lecturer, currently doing research about species interactions and insect biodiversity, and teaching courses in Environmental Sciences and Forestry (Research Skills, Umweltsystemmodellierung, Nachhaltige Landnutzung und Naturschutz). From 2013 to 2015, I studied food web dynamics in Kevin McCann’s lab at the University of Guelph, Canada, supported by a fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

In early 2013, I worked as a short-term postdoc at the University of California, Davis, CA, USA, in Neal M. Williams’ lab.

I earned a Dr. rer. nat. (PhD) in Biodiversity and Ecology at Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany, in Teja Tscharntke’s Agroecology group. The German Environmental Foundation (DBU) supported me with a dissertation fellowship.

Before, I obtained a Diplom (MSc) in Biology at the University of Würzburg, Germany, and my Diploma thesis was supervised by Nico Blüthgen and Karl Eduard Linsenmair.

Selected publications

• Donoso I, Schleuning M, García D, Fründ J. (2017): Defaunation effects on plant recruitment depend on size matching and size trade-offs in seed-dispersal networks. Proceedings of the Royal Society B; 284 (1855), doi: 10.1098/rspb.20162664. [journal]
   

• Schleuning M, Fründ J, Schweiger O, Welk E, Albrecht J, Albrecht M, Beil M, Benadi G, Blüthgen N, Bruelheide H, Böhning-Gaese K, Dehling DM, Dormann CF, Exeler N, Farwig N, Harpke A, Hickler T, Kratochwil A, Kuhlmann M, Kühn I, Michez D, Mudri-Stojnić S, Plein M, Rasmont P, Schwabe A, Settele J, Vujić A, Weiner CN, Wiemers M, Hof C. (2016): Ecological networks are more sensitive to plantthan to animal extinction under climate change. Nature Communications: doi: 10.1038/ncomms13965. [journal]
   

• Gagic V, Fründ J, Kavallieratos NG, Athanassiou CG, Starý P, Tomanović Ž (2016). The effects of aphid traits on parasitoid host use and specialist advantage. PLoS ONE, 11, e0157674. [journal]
   

• Fründ J, McCann KS, Williams NM (2016). Sampling bias is a challenge for quantifying specialization and network structure: lessons from a quantitative niche model. Oikos, 125, pp. 502-513. [journal]
   

• Schleuning M, Fründ J, Garcia, D (2015). Predicting ecosystem functions from biodiversity and mutualistic networks: an extension of trait-based concepts to plant-animal interactions. Ecography, doi: 10.1111/ecog.00983. [journal]

• Gigante Carvalheiro LG, Biesmeijer JC, Benadi G, Fründ J, Stang M, Bartomeus I, Kaiser-Bunbury CN, Baude M, Gomes SIF, Merckx V, Baldock KCR, Bennett ATD, Boada R, Bommarco R, Cartar R, Chacoff N, Dänhardt J, Dicks LV, Dormann CF, Ekroos J, Henson KSE, Holzschuh A, Junker RR, Lopezaraiza-Mikel M, Memmott J, Montero-Castaño A, Nelson IL, Petanidou T, Power EF, Rundlöf M, Smith HG, Stout JC, Temitope K, Tscharntke T, Tscheulin T, Vilà M, Kunin WE (2014). The potential for indirect effects between co-flowering plants via shared pollinators depends on resource abundance, accessibility and relatedness. Ecology Letters, doi: 10.1111/ele.12342. [journal]

• Haenke S, Kovács-Hostyánszki A, Fründ J, Batáry P, Jauker B, Tscharntke T, Holzschuh A (2014). Landscape configuration of crops and hedgerows drives local syrphid fly abundance. Journal of Applied Ecology, 51, pp. 505-513. [journal]

• Fründ J, Zieger SL, Tscharntke T (2013). Response diversity of wild bees to overwintering temperatures. Oecologia, 173, pp. 1639-1648. [journal]

• Fründ J, Dormann CF, Holzschuh A, Tscharntke T (2013). Bee diversity effects on pollination depend on functional complementarity and niche shifts. Ecology, 94, pp. 2042-2054. [journal]
  recommended by F1000Prime | 12 Jul 2013 [link]

• Tscharntke T, Tylianakis JM, Rand TA, Didham RK, Fahrig L, Batáry P, Bengtsson J, Clough Y, Crist TO, Dormann CF, Ewers RM, Fründ J, Holt RD, Holzschuh A, Klein AM, Kleijn D, Kremen C, Landis DA, Laurance WF, Lindenmayer D, Scherber C, Sodhi N, Steffan-Dewenter I, Thies C, van der Putten WH, Westphal C (2012). Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes – eight hypotheses. Biological Reviews, 87, pp. 661-685. [journal]

• Schleuning M*, Fründ J*, Klein AM, Abrahamczyk S, Alarcón R, Albrecht M, Andersson GKS, Bazarian S, Böhning-Gaese K, Bommarco R, Dalsgaard B, Dehling M, Gotlieb A, Hagen M, Hickler T, Holzschuh A, Kaiser-Bunbury CN, Kreft H, Morris RJ, Sandel B, Sutherland WJ, Svenning JC, Tscharntke T, Watts S, Weiner CN, Werner M, Williams NM, Winqvist C, Dormann CF, Blüthgen N. (2012). Specialization of mutualistic interaction networks decreases towards tropical latitudes. Current Biology, 22, pp. 1925-1931. [journal]
  *these authors contributed equally highlighted in Current Biology | Dispatch: 22, pp. R914-R915 (6 Nov 2012)

• Fründ J, Dormann CF, Tscharntke T (2011). Linné’s floral clock is slow without pollinators – flower closure and plant-pollinator interaction webs. Ecology Letters, 14, pp. 896-904. [journal]
  highlighted in Nature | Research Highlights: 476, p. 9 (04 August 2011).

• Parsche S, Fründ J*, Tscharntke T (2011). Experimental environmental change and mutualistic vs. antagonistic plant flower-visitor interactions. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 13, pp. 27–35. [journal] *corresponding author

• Fründ J, Linsenmair KE, Blüthgen N (2010). Pollinator diversity and specialization in relation to flower diversity. Oikos, 119, pp. 1581–1590. [journal]

• Dormann CF, Fründ J, Blüthgen N, Gruber B (2009). Indices, graphs and null models: analysing bipartite ecological networks. The Open Ecology Journal, 2, pp. 7-24. [journal]

• Blüthgen N, Fründ J, Vazquez DP, Menzel F (2008). What do interaction network metrics tell us about specialization and biological traits? Ecology, 89(12), pp. 3387–3399. [journal]

• Meyer CFJ, Fründ J, Pineda Lizano W, Kalko EKV (2008). Ecological correlates of vulnerability to fragmentation in Neotropical bats. Journal of Applied Ecology, 45, pp. 381–391. [journal]

• Ferreras-Romero M, Fründ J, Marquez-Rodriguez J (2005). Sobre la situación actual de Lestes macrostigma (Eversmann, 1836) (Insecta: Odonata) en el área de Doñana (Andalucía, sur de España). Boletín de la Asociación española de Entomología, 29, pp. 41-50.

• Bartomeus I, Fründ J, Williams NM (2016). Invasive plants as novel food resources, the pollinators’ perspective. Peer-reviewed book chapter to appear in: Biological Invasions and Behavior. Edited by Daniel Sol and Judy Weis. Cambridge University Press. [Preprint]

• Fründ J (2013). Artenvielfalt von Wildbienen und anderen bestäubenden Insekten und ihre funktionelle Bedeutung für Wild- und Kulturpflanzen. In: Treffpunkt Biologische Vielfalt XII, BfN-Skripten 335, edited by Feit U & Korn H, Bundesamt für Naturschutz (Bonn), pp. 149-154. [journal]

• Fründ J, Beckedorf S (2011). Ohne Bienen geht die Uhr nach. Deutsches Bienen-Journal, 36, p. 468.

• Dormann CF, Gruber B, Fründ J (2008). Introducing the bipartite package: analysing ecological networks. R News, 8 (2).