Land use and biodiversity
The abundance and diversity of natural populations are under threat from mechanisms including habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change and land use change. Although multiple mechanisms often overlap and there are synergies, land use change is considered one of the main drivers behind the aggressive transformation and loss of biodiversity. Changes in land use - along natural and anthropogenic land cover gradients - modify the composition and diversity of ecosystems, as well as their ecological processes and services. Our research capitalizes on the multilevel measurement (e.g. species interactions, abiotic factors, or evolutionary processes) of ecosystem transformation to address fundamental questions in ecology: how changes in species composition contribute to concomitant effects on ecosystem processes. We are therefore also interested in making projections and recommendations under certain scenarios related with ecosystem management, and the maintenance of biological, economic and social benefits of biodiversity. Below we describe primary areas of research topics developed in our research group:
Biodiversity Exploratories
Arthropods contribute significantly to the maintenance of terrestrial ecosystems and provide a variety of ecosystem services. A major challenge of conservation biology lies in understanding the effects of management practices on insect communities. This challenge is further complicated as responses to land use change may be species specific, might vary temporally and/or change in different habitats. Subsequently, the Biodiversity Exploratories project (https://www.biodiversity-exploratories.de/en/) provides a monitoring platform in grassland and forest ecosystems for large-scale field research to address crucial questions about the effects of different intensities of land use on insect biodiversity and ecosystem processes. The long-term nature of this experiment also allows for the examination of how biodiversity influences different ecosystem processes over time, such as pest control, biomass accumulation or deadwood decomposition.
Gypsy moth
Tree species combination and biodiversity conservation
Old project Brazilian grassland
Natural grasslands in south Brazil have at a large scale been converted into tree plantations or agricultural land or been severely degraded. This project, which is a cooperation between the groups for restoration ecology and terrestrial ecology at TUM, investigates the biotic composition and the ability to perform ecosystem functions at grassland sites spanning a degradation gradient. Also, the potential of these sites for ecological restoration and suitable techniques are assessed.