Romy Zeiss

Doctoral Researcher / SoilBON Data Manager

Experimental Interaction Ecology
yDiv – Doctoral Researchers

Scientific career

Since December 2021

PhD student at German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and Leipzig University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer. Title: "Priorities for effective conservation of soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in Germany" funded by Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt.

2019 – 2021

M. Sc. Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution at the Leipzig University. Thesis at German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer and Dr. Carlos A. Guerra: “How (well) does European policy protect soil organisms - Challenges of protecting European belowground biodiversity beyond productive systems”.

2016 – 2019

B. Sc. Biology at the Leipzig University. Thesis at German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer and Dr. Malte Jochum: “Impacts of earthworm invasion on aboveground invertebrate communities in North American forest ecosystems”.

Projects

Co-coordinating the translation of the Frontiers for Young Minds “Soil Biodiversity” Collection (Link to collection: https://www.idiv.de/en/young-minds/languages.html)

Running a podcast called „Solid Science“ that is available on most platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcast, Deezer, and PlayerFM. So(i)lid Science is a podcast about science and people with a certain focus on soils, in which Carlos Guerra and I are chatting with our diverse group of guests about their subjects.

Initialization and coordination of a Coding Club at the iDiv (iCode), which offers several exchange platforms for interested scientists at the iDiv to discuss coding issues and analyses.

Teaching

May 2023 & May 2022

Co-supervision of master's students on their 3-week research projects & preparation of core materials for a 1-day introduction to Species Distribution Models (SDMs).

April 2023

3-day course introducing R, RStudio, and basic statistics for bachelor's & master's students, co-supervision together with Christian Ristok

April 2023

2-hour course introducing of R and RStudio for master’s students

April - June 2021

Co-supervision of a master's course: preparation of course material & assistance with data acquisition and analysis.

iDiv publications

Zeiss, Romy, Briones, Maria J. I., Mathieu, Jérome, Lomba, Angela, Dahlke, Jessica, Heptner, Laura-Fiona, Salako, Gabriel, Eisenhauer, Nico, Guerra, Carlos A.

(2024): Effects of climate on the distribution and conservation of commonly observed European earthworms. Conservation Biology

DOI

Cano-Díaz, Concha, Zeiss, Romy, Carvalho-Santos, Claudia, Carvalho, Rui P., Costa, Sofia R., Duarte, A. Carolina, Fernandes, Paulo, Guerra, Carlos A.

(2023): Mapping socio-environmental pressures to assess Portuguese soil vulnerability. Applied Geography

DOI

Jochum, M., Thouvenot, L., Ferlian, O., Zeiss, R., Klarner, B., Pruschitzki, U., Johnson, E. A. and Eisenhauer, N.

(2022): Aboveground impacts of a belowground invader: how invasive earthworms alter aboveground arthropod communities in a northern North American forest. Biology Letters

DOI

Zeiss, R., Eisenhauer, N., Orgiazzi, A., Rillig, M., Buscot, F., Jones, A., Lehmann, A., Reitz, T., Smith, L., Guerra, C. A.

(2022): Challenges of and opportunities for protecting European soil biodiversity. Conservation Biology

DOI