Professorship for Ecosystem Functioning and Services

Organisational unit: Professoship

Organisation profile

oing for multifunctionality as a path to sustainability:

The two main foci of the ecosystem functioning and services lab in­vol­ve ac­qui­ring a bet­ter un­der­stan­ding and fos­te­ring of ex­ten­si­ve­ly ma­na­ged bio­di­ver­se sys­tems and ma­king in­ten­si­ve­ly ma­na­ged sys­tems more sustainable.

Bio­di­ver­si­ty is a key com­po­nent of a func­tio­n­ing, sustainable pla­net, yet it is being lost at a rate ne­ver seen be­fo­re in the his­to­ry of the earth in the cur­rent 6th mass extinc­tion event. One of the main cau­ses of bio­di­ver­si­ty loss world­wi­de is land use chan­ge/ ha­bi­tat loss com­bi­ned with ex­cess nut­ri­ent in­put into our eco­sys­tems, as well as cli­ma­te chan­ge and in­va­si­ve spe­cies. Hence, key ques­ti­ons of our time on a crow­ded pla­net are:

  • How can we counter current biodiversity loss, whilst also allowing for food security and adequate livelihoods and social interactions?
  • What role can the restoration of biodiversity play in counteracting biodiversity loss, whilst helping to mitigate climate change and providing new forms of social and economic livelihood?

Pos­si­ble so­lu­ti­ons in­clu­de a com­bi­ned land sharing and land spa­ring ap­proach to land use, fo­cus­sing on both ex­ten­si­ve land use as well as a sustainable in­ten­si­fi­ca­ti­on of crop­ping sys­tems. Both bio­di­ver­si­ty and as­sem­bly re­se­arch in eco­lo­gy are of key re­le­van­ce to ad­dres­sing such ques­ti­ons, sin­ce in land sharing (e.g. na­tu­re-fri­end­ly far­ming) we need to main­tain or res­to­re high di­ver­si­ty whilst en­su­ring ade­qua­te agri­cul­tu­ral yield, and know­ledge from bio­tic in­ter­ac­tion re­se­arch will be es­sen­ti­al for im­pro­ving the ef­fi­ci­en­cy of in­ten­si­ve agri­cul­tu­re, as well as pro­vi­ding pos­si­ble le­ver­age in en­ab­ling both re­a­sonable yiel­ds as well as bio­di­ver­si­ty.

Main research areas

The two main foci of the ecosystem functioning and services lab in­vol­ve ac­qui­ring a bet­ter un­der­stan­ding and fos­te­ring of ex­ten­si­ve­ly ma­na­ged bio­di­ver­se sys­tems and ma­king in­ten­si­ve­ly ma­na­ged sys­tems more sustainable:  

  1. Extensive land use, land sharing and ecological restoration: testing the potential role of priority effects during assembly.
  2. Sustainable intensification: Improving the efficiency of nutrient-use in cropping systems by using functional diversity approaches.

 

Research topics

  • Testing priority effects (order of arrival of plant species and functional groups) in assembly as a potential tool for the restoration of biodiverse ecological communities.
  • Investigating the importance of weather conditions on the creation and persistence of priority effects during assembly of grassland plant communities. POEM project
  • Elucidating the mechanisms leading to priority effects during assembly.  POEM project
  • The role of nitrogen facilitation in ecosystem functioning and assembly – with particular focus on legume-non legume interactions
  • Using positive interactions (both between plants of different functional groups and in cropping systems) for the sustainable transformation of cropping and bioenergy systems. INPLAMINT projekt
  • Improving the integration and transfer of knowledge between ecology and policy at the science-policy interface.
  • Linking ecological know-how and knowledge based on the above topics with social and governance perspectives to help transform systems towards sustainability (including land sharing and land sparing).

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Unterschiede in der Entstehung und Sicherung von Wettbewerbsvorteilen bei KMU und großen Unternehmen
  2. Jürgen Habermas (geb. 1929): Kritische Theorie, gesellschaftliche Lernprozesse und öffentliches Engagement
  3. Ankunfts-, Entscheidungs- und Rückführungszentren (AnkER-Zentren) – Erwartungen und kritische Bestandsaufnahme
  4. Die Behandlung kollektivvertraglicher Normenkollisionen nach Verschmelzung und Spaltung von Unternehmen
  5. Temperature regimes and aphid density interactions differentially influence VOC emissions in Arabidopsis
  6. Different facets of tree sapling diversity influence browsing intensity by deer dependent on spatial scale
  7. The woodstock of sustainability science impulses from the wuppertal making utopia possible conference week
  8. Exploiting linear partial information for optimal use of forecasts. With an application to U.S. economic policy
  9. Likelihood-based panel cointegration test in the presence of a linear time trend and cross-sectional dependence
  10. Impact of rhizobacterial volatiles on Brachypodium distachyon (L.) Beauv. growth and response to abiotic stresses
  11. Zwischen der Suche nach Lebensgefühl, Realismus und Geschichte, Selbstverständigung und dem Traum von Hollywood
  12. Patient Relationship Management als Multi-Stakeholder-Konzept : Erarbeitung interner und externer Erfolgsfaktoren
  13. Form ever follows function: Jane Addams Sozialreform und die Architektur Louis Sullivans and Frank Lloyd Wrights
  14. Hilfreiche Faktoren zur Bewältigung von beruflichen Übergängen: Von der Berufswahlreife zur Übergangsbereitschaft
  15. Customer Orientation of Service Employees—Toward a Conceptual Framework of a Key Relationship Marketing Construct