Email marc.schallenberg@otago.ac.nz
Phone 64-3-479-8403
Research Interests
- Assessment of anthropogenic impacts on lake ecosystems
- The structure and functioning of planktonic communities along environmental gradients
- Aquatic microbial ecology
- Palaeolimnological reconstruction of historic environments
Current Postgraduate Students
- Sarai Cosgrove (MSc) Late Holocene palaeo-limnological reconstruction of environmental conditions in and around Waituna Lagoon, Southland.
- Brad Caston (PhD) Impacts of land use on primary production in deep, Central Otago lakes
- Tina Bayer (PhD) Potential impacts of climate change on the pelagic food webs of deep, Central Otago lakes
- Ian Smith (MSc) Impacts of runoff contaminated with the nitrification inhibitor, DCD, on nitrogen cycling in a wetland
- Beate Bierschenk (PhD) Niche partitioning amongst four species of mysid shrimps in the Taieri Estuary
- Adrian Lill (PhD) Landscape-scale patterns of ecological structure and functioning of small estuaries
Past Postgraduate Students Research Supervised
- Daniel Thomas (Hons) Estimating molecular and turbulent diffusion of nutrients from the sediments of a shallow coastal lake.
- Theresa Downs (MSc) Trace metal limitation of phytoplankton productivity.
- Michelle Brunton (MSc) Freshwater bryzoans in Dunedin: Distribution, impacts, and potential control methods.
- Tina Bayer (MSc) An investigation of nutrient limitation status and nutrient pathways to Lake Hayes, Otago, as case study for integrated lake assessment.
- Rob Cadmus (MSc) What is, what was, and what will be: Environmental history as a basis for sustainable wetland restoration (2004).
- Katrina Spencer (PGDip) Nutrient limitation of phytoplankton primary productivity in three shallow lakes (2003).
- Catherine Hall (PhD) Effects of tidal intrusions of seawater on the crustacean zooplankton community of a tidal coastal lake (2001).
- Lynda McCann (Hons) The effect of antibiotics in the Taieri Main Drain on bacteria in Lake Waipori (2001).
- Jonathan Copson (Hons) Plankton response to agricultural contaminants and their potential as environmental indicators in Lake Waipori, New Zealand (1998).
- Francis Koon (Hons) The history of the Waipori and Waihola Wetland Complex: An ecosystem through time (1997).
- Mark Leeming (Hons) Autotrophic picoplankton in Lake Wakatipu: relations to nutrient concentrations and ratios (1997).
- Udo Freidrich (PGDip) Ecological importance of particles, phytoplankton and nutrients to heterotrophic bacterial abundance and activity in two oligotrophic New Zealand lakes (1994).
Potential Postgraduate Projects
- Assessment of the potential for food web biomanipulation to improve the water quality of Dunedin's drinking water supplies (MSc)
- Trophic "bottlenecks" and "highways": Determining the foodwebs and energy flows of deep, oligotrophic Central Otago lakes (MSc PhD)
- Is sulphate a neglected key to the problem of eutrophication? The role of sulphate reduction in mediating phosphorus release from anoxic lake sediments
- Does land-derived dissolved organic carbon weaken the trophic coupling between bacteria and phytoplankton in the open waters of lakes and the sea?
- Why does the addition of the plant nutrient, phosphorus, reduce the abundance of pico-phytoplankton in some ultra-oligotrophic lakes? -
- Can dust storms from braided river beds stimulate phytoplankton productivity in ultra-oligotrophic lakes?
- Assessing the past and present contributions of marine nitrogen to coastal lakes and lagoons: Have anthropogenic reductions in seal and sea bird populations reduced marine nitrogen loading?
- I am happy to discuss other project ideas with enthusiastic and motivated students
