People

BIOPIC

For opportunities to join the lab, please have a look here.

Group leader:

  • Damaris Zurell (PhD) - Professor of Ecology & Macroecology at University of Potsdam

Administrative assistant:

Scientific programmers:

Senior & Postdoctoral researchers:

  • Bettina Ohse (PhD) - Individual postdoc project, functional biodiversity, forest disturbances
  • Arman Pili (PhD) - invasion biology, macroecological modelling, functional ecology
  • Juliane Wolter (PhD) - Individual postdoc project, paleoecology, effects of Arctic vegetation changes on carbon dynamics

Doctoral researchers:

  • Valén Holle - ZOE project, PhD thesis on modelling biodiversity-disease relationships and hotspots of zoonotic disease emergence (ZOE project)
  • Anna Rönnfeldt - NichePac project, PhD thesis on understanding and predicting niche and spread dynamics of Pacific plant invaders (NichePac project)
  • Katrin Schifferle - DEBTs project, PhD thesis on detecting and attributing biodiversity trends in North American birds (DEBTs project)
  • Levin Wiedenroth - Birdwatch project, PhD thesis on species distribution modelling & optimisation of greening measures for farmland birds (Birdwatch project)

Research assistants, Bachelor & Master students:

  • Clara Franz Berenguer - research assistant, acoustic monitoring
  • Natalie Heinrich - Master thesis on Uncertainty in extinction risk classification based on SDM
  • Raya Keuth (MSc) - research assistant, data analyses, bird range modelling (DEBTs project)
  • Olga Kuznetsova - research assistant, species distribution models
  • Emma Underwood (MSc) - reseach assistant, geospatial analyses (Birdwatch project)

Alumni:

  • Former lab members are listed here.

Projects

ZOE

Zoonoses Emergence across Degraded and Restored Forest Ecosystems - funded by HORIZON-CL6-2023-BIODIV-01 (2024-2027)

BIOPIC

Understanding population and community response to global change - Emmy Noether project funded by the German Science Foundation DFG (2018-2023).

BirdWatch

Copernicus-based service for the improvement of habitat suitability of farmland birds - funded by HORIZON-EUSPA-2021-SPACE (2023-2026).

DEBTs

Drivers of past and future population and community dynamics in North American breeding birds - funded by the German Science Foundation DFG (2023-2026).

NichePac

Niche and spread dynamics of introduced alien plants in Pacific - funded by the German Science Foundation DFG (2023-2026).

BeyondSpecies

Predicting biodiversity change by integrating genetic diversity into ecological niche models - Leibniz Cooperative Excellence Project (2021-2024)

Audiomonitoring

Automated bioacoustic monitoring of birds, bats and insects.

RangeShiftR

The RangeShifter platform - an eco-evolutionary modelling framework.

COMECO

Improved automated image recognition for identifying plants of Switzerland - Interdisciplinary project funded by the Swiss Data Science Center (2020-2022).

RangeDyna

Moving from pattern towards process for improved forecasts of species range dynamics - DAAD research exchange with Univ. Melbourne (2019-2020).

SCODA

Scaling from individual interactions to community dynamics in avian assemblages - Ambizione project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNF (2016-2019).

SPEEDMIND

Improving species biodiversity analyses and citizen science feedback - Interdisciplinary project funded by the Swiss Data Science Center (2017-2019).

MATES

Understanding and predicting multispecies assemblages and interactions - Marie Curie fellowship funded by FP7 (2014-2016).

PhD thesis

Improve species range predictions for scenarios of environmental change - PhD research (2007-2011).

Publications

You can find a full list of my publications here.

My ResearcherID is E-2439-2012. You can also find me on ResearchGate and GoogleScholar.

Teaching

Teaching materials for practicals:

Current teaching:

  • BSc course “Introduction to scientific working in ecology”, Bachelor programme Bioscience, Univ. Potsdam
  • MSc course “R preparatory course”, Master programme “Ecology, Evolution and Conservation”, Univ. Potsdam
  • MSc module “Experimental design and data analysis”, Master programme “Ecology, Evolution and Conservation”, Univ. Potsdam
  • MSc module “Macroecology and global change”, Master programme “Ecology, Evolution and Conservation”, Univ. Potsdam
  • MSc module “Quantitative conservation biogeography”, Master programme “Ecology, Evolution and Conservation”, Univ. Potsdam
  • MSc module “Ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity”, Master programme “Climate, Earth, Water, Sustainability”, Univ. Potsdam

Downloads

You can download some of my codes from my github site.

Latest software developments in my team include:

  • an R package for the RangeShifter platform. More info under https://rangeshifter.github.io
  • a Shiny web app introducing and facilitating the usage of the ODMAP protocol for reporting SDM. Check out here: odmap.wsl.ch

Contact