Research conservation biology

Focus: Plant-invertebrate communities in a changing world

We study how plants and invertebrates directly and indirectly interact and what the consequences for ecosystem functioning are. Particularly, we are interested in how species interact across trophic groups and how spatio-temporal dynamics of organisms affect those interactions. Thereby a focus is on direct and indirect interactions of organisms active at night (e.g., nocturnal pollinators).

Furthermore, we are interested in how global change alters those plant-invertebrate community processes. We thereby focus on multiple global change factors, but in particular land-use change (agricultural intensification, urbanization and the associated artificial light at night), climate change and invasive species.

Finally, we are interested in developing and improving conservation measures to preserve and promote species and the ecological and evolutionary processes linked to it. We do so by conducting transdisciplinary research and collaborating with stakeholders and authorities.

Focus: Global change and the temporal and spatial distribution of biodiversity

With about 50% of all described species being insects, they constitute a major part of the world´s biodiversity and provide many key ecosystem functions. Yet, we only are at the beginning of understanding of how they have changed over larger time scales and what the major drivers of such changes have been. We thus study how climate and land-use change have changed the occurrence of insects over the past decades. Also, we investigate whether and how insects have adapted those global change drivers, e.g., by reducing body size or colour. 

Just as we know little about how insects have changed over time, we know little about how they move in space. We thus are interested in insect dispersal and migration movements, how they are linked to landscape factors, and what the consequences of such movements are for ecosystem functioning and local community processes.