The biodiversity modelling lab

I am fascinated by the question why species and individuals are where they are, how they get there and how they manage to sustain. This is central to understanding how they will respond to changes in their abiotic and biotic environment, for example due to climate change.

In my team, we tackle research questions across several spatial and temporal scales. For example, we study drivers of broad-scale species distributions, of population dynamics as well as individual fitness, and their interplay with inter- and intraspecific interactions and life-history trade-offs. Modelling and data integration is a major part of our work, and we dedicate a lot of time to testing and improving existing methods for biodiversity modelling.

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

Group leader:

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

Administrative assistant:

• Jennifer Kaminski

Technical and research support:

• Simon Kapitza (M.Sc.) - data base management, biodiversity assessments, socio-economic modelling
• Jette Reeg (PhD) - ecological modeller and scientific programmer

Postdocs:

• Guillermo Fandos Guzman (PhD) - BIOPIC project, work package “Understanding how life history and environment shape dispersal in birds”
• Christian König (PhD) - BIOPIC project, work package “Understanding how biotic interactions shape species’ niches”
• Juliane Wolter (PhD) - Individual postdoc project, paleoecology, effects of Arctic vegetation changes on carbon dynamics

PhD students:

• Anne-Kathleen Malchow (M.Sc.) - BIOPIC project, PhD thesis “Understanding how life history and demography shape species’ niches”
• Yari Osenberg (M.Sc.) - CRC1294 Data assimilation, Fitting dynamic simulation models of spatiotemporal population dynamics

Bachelor/Master students:

• Anshika Kulshrestha - HNE Eberswald, Master thesis on dynamic occupancy modelling of Swiss breeding birds
• Elisabeth Riegel - Univ. Potsdam, Bachelor thesis on movement metrics in white storks
• Bennett Stolze - FU Berlin, Bachelor thesis on seasonal niche overlap in white storks

Alumni:

• please find a list of former lab members here.

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 materials for practicals:

• Block course R introductory/prepartory course - up to date
• Practicals for MSc course Macroecological analyses - up to date
• Block course Species distribution modelling - up to date
• Short course Introduction to the RangeshiftR package - up to date
• Practicals for MSc module Global change impacts on biodiversity - last updated Feb 2020
• Short (half-day) course Introduction to species distribution modelling in R - last updated November 2020

Current teaching:

• BSc course “Introduction to scientific working in ecology”, Univ. Potsdam
• MSc course “R preparatory course”, Univ. Potsdam
• MSc module “Macroecology and global change”, Univ. Potsdam
• MSc module “Quantitative conservation biogeography”, Univ. Potsdam

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

• damaris.zurell@uni-potsdam.de
• +49 331 977 1910
• Postal address: Universität Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, D-14469 Potsdam, Germany || Office address: Maulbeerallee 3, D-14469 Potsdam, Room 0.12