Doctoral Researchers

Name	Affiliation/Working group	PhD Project	Website
Patrick Baan	UFZ/Physiological Diversity	Plant nutrient responses	website
Caterina Barrasso	UL/	Validation, uncertainty analysis and log term improvement of derived global time series to essential land use variables	website
Leonardo Bassi	UL/Systematic Botany and Functional Biodiversity research	Chemical and morphological traits as mediators of biotic interactions along plant diversity gradients	website
Elisabeth Bönisch	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	How does resource inequity affect aboveground-belowground diversity and ecosystem functioning	website
Diego Brizuela-Torres	UFZ/Conservation Biology and Social-Ecological Systems	DeForESG – Deforestation explained by social-ecological dynamics and governance shifts	website
Andressa Cabral	UL/Evolution and Adaptation	Macroecology and macroevolution of plant – frugivore trait matching in the tropics	website
Niranjana Chethana	MLU/Species Interaction Ecology	Butterfly Biodiversity and the Structure of herbivore-plant-pollinator Networks in Response to Habitat Fragmentation in the Western Ghats in India	website
Evangelia Linda Chronopoulou	Univ. of Jena/Evolutionary Ecology	Biotic and abiotic drivers of variation in fruit traits	website
Ioannis Constantinou	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	Multidiversity-Multifunctionality	website
Thibault Coquery	MLU/Species Interaction Ecology	Community re-assemblage of grasslands under global change: integrating climate niches and experimental species (im)migrattion	website
Rajaditya Das	Univ. of Jena/Theory in Biodiversity Science	Animal movement: From traits to networks	website
Julia Dieskau	MLU/Geobotany and Botanical Garden	Assembly of native and exotic grassland communities – the role of mutual invasibility, priority effects and time	website
Emily Dovydaitis	MLU/Symbiont Evolution	The biogeography of insect and symbiont genetic diversity	website
Léonard El-Hokayem	MLU/Institute of Geosciences and Geography	Identifying threatened groundwater dependent ecosystems as local biodiversity hotspots in Saxony-Anhalt and globally via remote sensing	website
Marie Englert	UL/Systematic Botany and Functional Biodiversity	The role of protected areas in mitigating plant biodiversity loss in Germany	website
Esther Felgentreff	Univ. of Jena/Vegetation Ecology	Capturing biodiversity in home gardens	website
Jennifer Gabriel	Univ. of Jena/Molecular Interaction Ecology	Effects of intraspecific variation in functional traits on plant-herbivore-microbe interactions in white clover	website
Sophie Harzer	UL/Biodiversity Economics	Valuing Natural Capital under Uncertainty	website
Amelie Hauer	UL/Soil Biodiversity and Functions	Soil food web control of the carbon cycle	website
Yva Herion	UFZ/Physiological Diversity	Effects of climate change, land use intensity and nitrogen on plant productivity, chemistry and ecophysiology	website
Jonna Heuschele	UFZ/Biodiversity and People	The effects of landscape heterogeneity, land use intensity and crop diversity on the diversity and health of beneficial arthropods providing multiple ecosystem services in agro-ecosystems	website
Susanne Horka	MLU/Geobotany and Botanical Garden	Spatial scaling of Porphyry Outcrop Trends	website
Christopher Hutengs	UL/Physics and Geosciences	Soil microbial community assessment with portable mid-infrared and visible to near-infrared spectroscopy	website
Desiree Jakubka	Univ. of Jena/Biodiversity of Plants	Responses of herbaceous savanna vegetation to land use	website
Zarah Janda	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	Soil Multistability	website
Pauline Jennert	UL/Molecular Evolution and Plant Systematics	Synthesis through space and timeSynthesis through space and time: Integrative taxonomic revision of the Mahogany tree genus Toona	website
Theresa Jörger-Hickfang	MLU/Biodiversity Conservation	Impacts of land-use change on Biodiversity	website
Aaron Kauffeldt	Univ. of Jena/Biodiversity in the Anthropocene	Effekte von Extremwetterereignissen auf die Verbreitung und Populationsdynamik von Brutvögeln in Deutschland	website
Claudia Kelsall	UL/Biodiversity Economics	CRaMoRes: Changing Risks and Mobile Common Pool Resources	website
Lea Kolb	UFZ/Biodiversity and People	How does the Common Agricultural Policy shape farmer decisions, agricultural landscapes and biodiversity?	website
Vamsi Krishna Kommineni	MPI for Biogeochemistry/Functional Biogeography	Evaluating global patterns of leaf size using machine learning approaches	website
Patrizia König	Univ. of Jena/Systematic Botany	Are functional traits related to phenological shifts on different spatial scales?	website
Kevin Kožić	MLU/Plant Ecology	Population history studies of Centaurea stoebe-influence of genom size, soil microbes, climate and time on invasion success	website
Torvid Kreisler	MLU/Philosophical faculty I	Impacts of biodiversity on physical fitness, sociability, and health in Saxony-Anhalt and beyond
Paul Kühn	Univ. of Jena/Biodiversity of higher Plants	FunSpec – Detecting long-term functional changes in biodiversity: boosting analyses of herbarium specimens using	website
João Monnerat Lanna	MLU
April Lyn Leonar	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	The role of biotic drivers of oak-nematode interactions on the adaption and acclimation of trees under climate change	website
Jingyi Li	Univ. of Jena/Theory in Biodiversity Science	The implication of information flow on ecological networks structure and biodiversity	website
Pia Loeffke	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	Tree diversity effects as a driver of soil multifunctionality and stability under climate extremes	website
Lina Lüttgert	MLU/Geobotany and Botanical Garden	Biodiversity trends for Germany using repeated habitat mapping data	website
Thomas Medicus	Univ. of Jena/Evolutionary Ecology	IntegSaat: Integration of dead wood in direct seeding of Silver fir (Abies alba) and Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) for the establishment of stable, climate tolerant mixed forest ecosystems in the Hildburghausen Forest	website
Laura Méndez	UL/Evolution and Adaptation	Genomic Signatures of palms with megafaunal fruits on Madagascar	website
Elena Motivans	UFZ/Species Interaction Ecology	Unravelling pollinator-plant networks across a land-use gradient	website
Marius Munscheck	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	What are the human benefits of soilt multifunctionality?	website
Elenora Neugebauer
Linh Mai Nhat Nguyen	UL/Evolutionary Ecology	Evolution of fruit scent in Madagascar’s figs	website
Jessil Ann Pajar	Univ. of Jena/Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology	Tapping into signaling interaction between nematodes and aphids	website
Delphine Panziera	MLU/General Zoology	Rapid evolution of RNA viruses as a driver of insect pollinator decline	website
Guillaume Patoine	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	Global drivers of soil microbial communities and ecosystem functions	website
Nikolaj Rauff Poulsen	MLU/Biodiversity Conservation	Monitoring structural connectivity of protected areas across Europe (working title)	website
Leopold Preuß	MLU/Symbiont Evolution	Evolution of potential nutritional symbiosis between biotin providing wolbachia and solitary bee species	website
Yuanshu Pu	UL/Evolution and Adaptation	Adaptive evolution of plant-frugivore interactions on Madagascar	website
Laura Quintero Uribe	MLU/Biodiversity Conservation	Defining a framework for Rewilding European landscape in the Anthropocene	website
Rajat Rastogi	MLU/Species Interaction Ecology	ole of fire and ungulates in ecosystem recovery of invaded dry forests in India	website
Konstantin Reisner	UL/Biodiversity Economics	Quantifying the impact of climate change on economic production using satellite data	website
Marwin Rieck	MLU/Physiological Diversity		website
Kevin Rozario	UFZ/Biodiversity and People	DR. FOREST – Diversity of FORESTs affecting human health and well-being	website
Srijna Saxena		Root functional traits and their importance for drought resistance in grassland plants
Rike Schwarz	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	BETA-FOR Enhancing the structural diversity between patches for improving multidiversity and multifunctionality in production forests	website
Minghua Shen	MLU/Biodiversity Synthesis	A global-scale sythesis of land-use effects on freshwater biodiversity	website
Miriam Simon	UFZ/UL/Department of Molecular Toxicology	Exploring the impact of oil palm plantation use on the gut microbiome of Malaysian macaques	website
Pratyaksh Singh	MLU/Symbiont Evolution	Experimental evolution of inherited symbionts in novel hosts	website
Saneesh Cherapurath Soman	MLU	How do a tall, unpalatable grass and fire separately and interactively influence the phenology, size structure, and demography of woody communities?	website
Rachel Souza Ferreira	UL/Evolution and Adaptation	Macroevolution and Biogeography of Mimosoideae	website
Marilia Souza Lucas	MLU/Geobotany / Plant Ecology	Harnessing the power of RADseq data to achieve a more mechanistic understanding of rapid evolution	website
Gideon Stein	Univ. of Jena/Computer Vision Group	Causal Reasoning and Deep Learning for Understanding Changes in the Soil-Plant-Climate Interactions	website
Florian Steinebrunner	Univ. of Jena		website
Alexander Sternberg	MLU/Geobotany and Botanical Garden	Plants as ecosystems – analysing phytomicrobiomes and their shift due to biodiversity loss and global change	website
Deike Stoffers	UFZ/Physiological Diversity	Land- use effects on plant regeneration strategies in grasslands and their relation to community assembly	website
Josephine Ulrich	Univ. of Jena/Biodiversity of Plants	Patterns in plant phenology and intra-specific trait variability in grassland species	website
Jaya Upadhyay	UFZ/Species Interaction Ecology	Forest Communities across natural and anthropogenic gradients in Eastern Himalayas	website
Daniel Vedder	UFZ/Biodiversity and People	Simulating biodiversity dynamics on farmlands to improve policy investments	website
Anna Katharina Vincze	Univ. of Jena/Biodiversity of Plants	Monoglian vegetation in the past and present-deducting plant occurances, plant performance and plant phenology from herbarium specimens	website
Martina Marei Viti	MLU/Biodiversity Conservation	A biodiversity monitoring system for the Trans-European Nature Network	website
Weronika Vörös	MLU/Geobotany and Botanical Garden	The use of Herbarium specimen to track spacio-temporal changes in genetic diversity, fitness and phenology of endangered plant species in Saxony-Anhalt	website
Franziska Walther	UFZ/Physiological Diversity	Development of a pollen analytical method for the determination of food plants	website
Gabriel Walther	Univ. of Jena/Biodiversity of Plants	The importance of functionally rare species for ecosystem functioning in grasslands	website
Lu Wang	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	The role of tree-nematode interactions in the acclimation and adaption of trees	website
Franziska Walther	UFZ/Physiological Diversity	Development of a pollen analytical method for the determination of food plants	website
Lu Wang	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	The role of tree-nematode interactions in the acclimation and adaption of trees	website
Kai Jürgen Weber	UL	Remotely sensed characterization of vegetation as a source of bioaerosol emissions	website
Caitlin Wilkinson	Univ. of Jena/Theory in Biodiversity Science		website
Bilyana Stoykova Wild	MLU/General Zoology	Wild bee body size and wing fluctuating asymmetry as response traits to anthropogenic disturbance in agriculturally dominated landscapes in Saxony-Anhalt	website
Aklilu Wodebo Wola		The Effects of Time since Restoration and of Restoration Methods on Biodiversity and Carbon Stock in Sidama Region, Ethiopia	website
Felicitas Wolf	MLU/Species Interaction Ecology	The restoration of grasslands in abandonedarable land in Saxony-Anhalt: the consequences of temporally differentiated plant recovery on pollinators, their interations and essential ecosystem services	website
Aspen Matilda Workman	MLU/Species Interaction Ecology	Quantifying and Reducing Uncertainty in Plant Demographic Models	website
Huimin Yi	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	Mycorrhiza in tree diversity effects on ecosystem functions and food web	website
Romy Zeiss	UL/Experimental Interaction Ecology	Priorities for effective soil biodiversity and ecosystem service conservation	website
Yuping Zhong	MLU/Species Interaction Ecology	Testing whether new computer vision methods can detecting spatial environmental change in pollinator biodiversity and pollination	website
Antonia Therese Ziegler	Univ. of Jena/Biodiversity of Plants	Frost resistance – a neglected driver of plant phenology and distribution?	website
Anna Zueva	UL/Senckenberg	Viral hotspots and fluxes across above- and belowground food webs (ViralWeb)	website
Annika Zuleger	MLU/Biodiversity Conservation	Rewilding trends in the Peneda-Geres National Park and the Oder Delta	website