BIO

Associate professor of biological oceanography at the School of Marine Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Chile. Höfer is a biologist studying the biological component of the Oceans over the last 15 years. He is particularly interested in the interactions between the physico-chemical conditions and the biological component in a changing ocean. Since 2017 he is researching Antarctic marine ecosystems and how global change (especially freshening) will affect their functioning and thus their role in global biogeochemical cycles.

Nowadays he study the effects of melting glaciers on polar coastal ecosystems. He is particularly interested in how the marine cryosphere interacts with coastal Antarctic ecosystems affecting the role that the later will have in the climate system through air-sea fluxes of climate-relevant trace-gases. Up to date, we know very little about what is coming into the ocean along with the meltwater and a reliable assessment of these parameters is key to model and predict the effects that a melting cryosphere would have on Earth climate system through oceanographic feedbacks.

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS

Mestre, M., & Höfer, J. (2021). The microbial conveyor belt: connecting the globe through dispersion and dormancy. Trends in Microbiology, 29(6), 482-492.

2. Höfer, J., Giesecke, R., Hopwood, M. J., Carrera, V., Alarcón, E., & González, H. E. (2019). The role of water column stability and wind mixing in the production/export dynamics of two bays in the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Progress in Oceanography, 174, 105-116.

3. Hopwood, M. J., Carroll, D., Höfer, J., Achterberg, E. P., Meire, L., Le Moigne, F. A., … & González, H. E. (2019). Highly variable iron content modulates iceberg-ocean fertilisation and potential carbon export. Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-10.

4. Pinkerton, M. H., Boyd, P. W., Deppeler, S., Hayward, A., Höfer, J., & Moreau, S. (2021). Evidence for the impact of climate change on primary producers in the Southern Ocean. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 9, 592027.

5. Höfer, J., González, H. E., Laudien, J., Schmidt, G. M., Häussermann, V., & Richter, C. (2018). All you can eat: the functional response of the cold-water coral Desmophyllum dianthus feeding on krill and copepods. PeerJ, 6, e5872.