Michael Heethoff

Michael Heethoff is an Adjunct Professor at Darmstadt University of Technology specializing in animal evolutionary ecology with a focus on arthropods. His research spans multiple areas including 3D functional morphology, forest ecology, and chemical ecology.

His research interests include:

• Evolution and diversification of reproductive systems in oribatid mites that have abandoned sexual reproduction for hundreds of millions of years
• Chemical communication and defense mechanisms in arthropods, including allomones that affect predator-prey dynamics
• 3D functional morphology using advanced imaging techniques like Synchrotron x-ray tomography (SR-µCT) for bio-mechanical modeling
• Development of DISC3D (Darmstadt Insect Scanner) for 3D-digitization of insect museum collections
• Effects of climate change on forest soil animal communities as a member of the Lore-Steubing-Institute
• Regeneration dynamics of tropical rainforests in Ecuador through the REASSEMBLY research unit

Professor Heethoff leads a research group that includes postdocs (Drs. Klunk, Schmelzle, and Wehner), PhD students (Höpfner, Tartara, Trevisan), and technical staff (Hilpert, Sobkowiak). He is actively involved in interdisciplinary projects including ForestHealth, which combines canopy cover analysis with forest floor parameters, and studies on poison-dart frogs' predator-prey interactions.