CompEM — Comparative Electron Microscopy | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

The Comparative Electron Microscopy Lab studies the evolution of tunicates, more specifically appendicularians: tiny marine invertebrates that play a key role in the ocean’s carbon cycle. Using isCLEM, our uniquely developed 3D method, we compare whole organisms down to individual cellular structures within a single sample. Our main focus lies in understanding how the nervous systems, body plans, and life cycles of these animals evolved.

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Who we are

We are morphologists, marine zoologists and evolutionary biologists.

We study different animal groups to better understand the morphological diversity of marine invertebrates.

Our Team

Why this work matters

From whole organisms down to individual cellular structures, we reveal how animal body plans evolved.

Appendicularians are barely larger than a grain of rice, yet after copepods they are the most abundant animals in the plankton. Their huge mucus feeding houses – compared to their body size – are discarded and rebuilt up to 20 times a day. Sinking through the water column as part of the “marine snow”, they carry and store carbon long term into the deep ocean. Their important role in this cycle stands in contrast to how little is known about their anatomy and the structure of their houses. Our laboratory works exactly on these questions through comparative 3D anatomy: using isCLEM, an imaging method developed by PD Dr. Thomas Stach, we build high-precision 3D models that connect the morphology of whole animals to their cellular structures within the same sample. Comparing these models across species lets us trace how the biology of one of the ocean’s most understudied invertebrate groups took shape over evolutionary time.