Speaker
Description
Biodiversity is undergoing rapid decline driven by anthropogenic pressures and climate change. Addressing this trend has become a global imperative, with growing emphasis on the need to bend the curve of biodiversity loss. To effectively mitigate these changes, it is essential to improve our capacity to anticipate future biodiversity trajectories in order to plan and implement appropriate conservation measures. Birds represent particularly valuable indicators of biodiversity as they occupy multiple trophic levels and functional niches, and they have been shown to be highly sensitive to environmental change. Bird distributions are structured across multiple spatial and temporal scales, necessitating modelling approaches that explicitly incorporate hierarchical and multi-scale ecological processes. In the BirdFutures project, we leverage a systematically collected, long-term dataset of bird observations spanning more than 30 years across Germany to generate forecasts of bird diversity and distributions into the future. In addition, we explore alternative future scenarios through co-development with stakeholders from conservation, agriculture, finance, and other relevant sectors. These scenario-based “what-if” pathways provide critical foresight into how land-use and climate decisions may shape future biodiversity outcomes. Our modelling framework builds on a meta-model approach developed by Wiedenroth et al., integrating multi-scale species distribution models that incorporate environmental and habitat predictors at ecologically relevant scales for birds. This framework combines continental-scale climate data with fine-resolution habitat and landscape variables to improve predictive performance across scales. The long-term objective of this work is to develop a flexible, non-static modelling system capable of scaling across spatial resolutions and data availability. This approach will enable application beyond Germany to broader European contexts, supporting more robust ecological forecasting and decision-making under global change.
| Status Group | Postdoctoral Researcher |
|---|---|
| FOR TALKS: Poster Presentation Option | Yes, I’m willing to present as a poster. |