Natalie Loick

Dr. Natalie Loick-Wilde is a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) in Rostock, Germany, leading the Aquatic Food Webs Group. She specializes in marine biogeochemistry and plankton ecophysiology, utilizing stable isotope analysis to study nitrogen and carbon cycles in aquatic systems. Her work bridges ecological and chemical oceanography, focusing on amino acid-specific isotope dynamics and food web relationships.

• Education: Doctorate in Marine Biology (University of Rostock, 2006), Biology diploma (University of Bremen, 2001)

Her research explores functional diversity in plankton communities, the impact of climate change on zooplankton energy turnover, and nitrogen metabolism in estuaries. She is a principal investigator for projects like MeNARP (DFG) and Blue_Estuaries (BMBF) and collaborates internationally on tropical oceanographic studies. As a reviewer for journals including Nature and L&O, she contributes to scientific rigor in her field.

Dr. Loick-Wilde supervises PhD students, including Elvita Eglite, whose work on temperature effects on zooplankton food access is part of her group’s focus on marine food web resilience. She advocates for gender equity in science and balances her career with family life, supported by her feminist husband and institutional flexibility at IOW.