Jan Steger is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Palaeontology at the University of Vienna, Austria. He obtained his MSc in marine biology from the University of Bremen, Germany, and a PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Vienna. His main interests are the biodiversity, distributional patterns, and functional ecology of marine benthic invertebrates, and their responses to direct anthropogenic impacts and climate change. By combining methods from ecology and paleontology, such as the analysis of calcified organism remains preserved in/on the seafloor, Jan reconstructs the history and long-term variability of biological communities, extending our ecological knowledge beyond the era of direct scientific observations. Jan’s current research focuses on the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and deep-sea ecosystems in the Arctic Ocean and the Greenland Sea. Aboard R/V Falkor (too), he will study epifaunal molluscan communities and their shelly remains at hydrothermal vents, assessing the potential of shell accumulations to capture local biodiversity and its small-scale patchiness in this harsh and difficult-to-observe deep-water environment.
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