Research group

BIOECOS 

(BIOdiversity & ECOsystem Services)

News

March 2025: The decimatoR R package is a tool created by former research assistant in our group, Elizaveta Shcherbinina. This package facilitates the homogenization of coordinates from different sources. The software publication is available in Zenodo and GitHub. Congratulations, Elizaveta!

February 2025: Elina Takola was part of a broad collaboration of >300 scientists around the world. The project examined how the choice of different statistical models influences the results of an analysis. A publication with the title "Same data, different analysts: variation in effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and evolutionary biology" is now published in the journal BMC Biology! Congratulations Elina!

January 2025: Our group has two new preprints online! Maximus Anochirim is leading the manuscript "The implementation of network meta-analysis in Ecology; a case study using crop yield data", where he showcases a new statistical method (i.e. network meta-analysis), borrowed by Medical Sciences. To our knowledge, this is one of the first implementations of network meta-analyses in Ecology. Congratulations Maximus! Moreover, Elina Takola is leading the manuscript "Does sustainable agriculture promote biodiversity and yield? A second-order meta-analysis". This is a broad quantitative synthesis of literature, aiming at exploring the relationship between biodiversity and productivity in croplands, grasslands and agroforestry systems. Congratulations Elina!

December 2024: Maximus Anochirim is participating in the annual meeting of the British Ecological Society in Liverpool with his project about implementing network meta-analyses in experimental ecological data.

December 2024: Our group is now on LinkedIn. Let's connect!

November 2024: We welcome Jannatul Ferdous to our group!

October 2024: Members of our group are participating in the annual conference of SORTEE (Society for Open, Reliable and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary biology).

October 2024: We welcome Johanna Esguerra, Hayder Ramos Guerra and Olga Kuznetsova to our group!

October 2024: Today we had a farewell gathering for Dr. Michael Beckmann, who was the group leader of BIOECOS for the last few years. We are thankful to Micha for his important contribution and hard work. We wish him all the best for his new position!

September 2024: We welcome back Elizaveta Shcherbinina to our group! Elizaveta did her internship with us in the past and now she is re-joining as a student helper.

August 2024: Elina Takola is participating in the annual conference of the Ecological Society of America.

June 2024: We welcome back Maximus Anochirim to our group! Maximus did his internship with us in the past and now he is re-joining as a research assistant.

A visualization of the main tenets and components of our research; animals, their environment and data analyses (generated with DeepAI).
Our research focuses on monitoring, mapping and modeling spatio-temporal patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem services. It comprises conceptual work, syntheses and development of methods. Our aims are:
  • First, to understand the impacts of different land use systems on species distributions and the capacity of ecosystems to provide ecosystem services.
  • Secondly, to characterize and quantify trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services and between ecosystem services and biodiversity.
  • Thirdly, to explore the suitability of information derived from remote sensing or other geospatial data to help inform decision-making and to develop future monitoring capabilities.
Collaboration across disciplines is of central importance for our research. We are concerned with a broad range of spatial scales, from the local (individuals, populations) to the national as well as continental/global level.

Contact

Dr. Elina Takola (Group leader) email

Prof. Dr. Martin Volk (Head of Department) email


LinkedIn page of the group

Projects

Current Projects

  • Population dynamics of agricultural species
  • Animal movement in shared landscapes
  • Trade-offs between biodiversity and productivity in human-modified ecosystems
  • Sustainable landscape management

  • BESTMAP - Behavioural, Ecological and Socio-economic Tools for Modelling Agricultural Policy; Horizon 2020 project funded by the European Commission more information
  • WAKANAKA: Ermittlung naturschutzbezogener Kriterien in der Umweltprüfung der Bedarfsplanung für Stromnetze und in der Bundesfachplanung zur Erhöhung der Planungssicherheit und Verhinderung von Zielkonflikten
  • ECOPOTENTIAL: improving future ecosystem benefits through earth observations
  • TALE - Towards multifunctional agricultural landscapes in Europe: Assessing and governing synergies between food production, biodiversity and ecosystem services
  • LEGATO: Land-use intensity and Ecological Engineering – Assessment Tools for risks and Opportunities in irrigated rice based production systems

  • Improving species distribution models of endangered plants in Mexico (completed)

Members

Dr. Elina Takola

Andreas Böhme

Jannatul Ferdous

Johanna Esguerra

Dr. Michael Beckmann (previous group leader, 2011-2024)

Dr. Tuanjit Sritongchuay (2021-2025)

Can Zhang (2022-2024)

Julián Equihua (2021-2024)

Maximus Anochirim (01.06.2024-31.12.2024)

Olga Kuznetsova (01.09.2024-31.12.2024)

Anne Paulus (2018 - 2024)

Elizaveta Shcherbinina (01.05.2024-31.07.2024)

Sangita Chouhan (01.04.2024-31.07.2024)

Camilla Geiger (01.09.2023-31.12.2023)

Sontje Nier (05.06.2023-14.07.2023)

Tobias Richter (27.02.2023-11.04.2023)

Recent publications

For more information on publications, please visit the personal websites of our members.