Guy Pe'er, PhD
UFZ - Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Dept. Biodiversity and People
and
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Contact address:
Puschstrasse 4
04103 Leipzig, Germany
guy.peer@idiv.de
Projects:
Research interests
Understanding and addressing anthropogenic pressures on biodiversity and ecosystem services, especially through habitat loss, fragmentation, land-use- and climatic changes. Agriculture is a key driver of these losses, and hence a core topic in my work.
Particularly intensive agriculture exerts pressures both on our society and the environment - but how do EU policies address these pressures? Through interdisciplinary research I ask how the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) affects both nature and people as a complex Socio-Ecological System. In projects AgriDiv, CAP4GI (2022-2025), Agroecology-TRANSECT (Horizon Europe, 2022-2026) and LAFERIA (starting 1.1.2025) we focus also on the EU's Nature Restoration Law and the Green Deal as a whole, asking how European policies can help the expansion of good agroecological practices.
This brunch of our work feeds frequently to the Science-Policy Dialogue from local to EU levels.
Butterfly monitoring and citizen science: To address anthropogenic pressures on biodiversity, we first need people - and then, we need data to evaluate how what people do affect the environment. Butterflies are superb bioindicators for a range of reasons. Engaging volunteers in observing butterflies helps activating the public and animating conservation action. As a butterfly expert, I participated in founding the Israeli Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (BMS-IL) in 2009, and since 2020, I'm (co-)leading the German project VielFalterGarten and participating in the EU Horizon Europe project UNP+. Both projects focus on citizen science in urban areas, while in Agroecology-TRANSECT we also try to expand butterfly monitoring in rural areas. Thereby, we try to close knowledge gaps and empower citizens to support evidence-based decision-making.
People and Projects
Elizabeth Finch (Post-doc, project Agroecology-TRANSECT)
Linn Schaan (PhD student, project Agroecology-TRANSECT)
Daniel Vedder (PhD student, CAP4GI)
Lea Kolb (PhD student, CAP4GI)
Marco Matthies (technician, CAP4GI)
Maria Moosdorf (project assistant, iCAP-BES / Agroecology-TRANSECT)
Klara Bogs (assistant, Agroecology-TRANSECT)
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Alumni:
Dr. Orr Comay (post-doc, Israeli Butterfly Monitoring Scheme)
Julia Rouet-Leduc (PhD student, with Alfons van der Plas, project GrazeLIFE)
Ariane Chamoin (PhD student, with Etienne Maclouf & Aletta Bonn)
Andrea Büermann (PhD student, with Aletta Bonn, project VielFalterGarten)
Lea Kahoun (M.Sc. student, CAP4GI)
Judith Rakowski (assistant, projects CAP4GI and the Birds@Farmlands project)
Christian Nappert (technician, project VielFalterGarten)
Carla Cerda (assistant, project iCAP-BES)
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Fitness Check of the Common Agricultural Policy (2017)
Final report (>260 pages), 21.11.2017
Policy Brief: Making the greening greener (Pe'er et al. 2017) Policy Brief: Farmer decisions on EFA implementation, Germany (Zinngrebe et al. 2017)
