He was born in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Germany, studied biology at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen, and later at University of Bayreuth, Germany. Ziesmann had a postdoctoral research position at the Institute for Arable Crop Research Rothamsted, UK, and Max Planck Fellowship a the Institute for Behavioral Physiology at Seewiesen, Germany. He was one of the visiting scientists at Hort-Research, Auckland, New Zealand and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland. Since 2002, Ziesmann has been teaching mainly anatomy and physiology at APU.