Research Projects

This project will integrate metacommunity theory into biodiversity science to address the limitations of traditional approaches. The project will move beyond a predominant focus on local factors to include spatial and landscape-level processes. By incorporating broader-scale dynamics and a metacommunity perspective, the project seeks to identify key processes driving biodiversity change. The project will develop analytical methods that account for the complexity of biodiversity metrics, ensuring that biodiversity change estimates are more meaningful and comparable across studies. These refined analytical tools will be used to make scale-explicit biodiversity projections to improve our understanding of biodiversity loss in response to anthropogenic changes. Ultimately, the findings will contribute to informing conservation strategies and policy decisions aimed at mitigating biodiversity loss.

In LEPMON we develop and test a high-quality automated light trap to monitor moths and other nocturnal insects. High resolution pictures are made every few minutes, and AI is used to automatically identify the species photographed. The LEPMON system is deployed in eight cities in Germany from 2025 till 2027 to test the effects of urbanization on insect diversity. Citizens are invited to deploy the traps in places of their choosing, and taxonomic specialists will assist in identifying insects from images, which will be used to train the AI.

Roel van Klink leads work package 5: data analysis. In this work package, statistical analyses will be conducted to analyze the urban gradients, to design a method to prevent double counts, and to test a method to estimate diversity if the AI doesn’t know the species. Additionally, in this work package, data on insects other than moths will be collected, so that the system will be able to monitor more species, and five traps will be installed in Leipzig.

LEPMON is a collaboration between MLU/iDiv, Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Phillips University Marburg, and the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change in Bonn. It is financed by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)

The Biodiversity Digital Twin (BioDT) project is at the forefront of innovation, offering advanced simulation and prediction models to tackle critical global biodiversity challenges. This cutting-edge project is designed to address complex biodiversity dynamics through practical use cases, providing invaluable insights and tools for conservation and restoration efforts.

Zachary Hajian-Forooshani works on theoretical aspects of biodiversity dynamics and how they are influenced by global change.