Dieser Inhalt ist nur auf Englisch verfügbar. Bei Fragen zur Arbeitsgruppe, wenden Sie sich bitte an den sDiv-Koordinator Dr. Marten Winter.

Current call

Eighth sDiv Call for Working Groups, Individual & Working Group Postdocs and Sabbaticals is now OPEN !

This call is for working groups, individual postdocs and sabbaticals that would begin October 2020 or later. Applications are accepted via the iDiv application portal* only.

ALL FUNDING IS SUBJECT TO APPROVAL OF FURTHER DFG FUNDING OF iDiv (DECISION DUE JULY 2020).

All topics and questions related to synthesizing biodiversity research are welcome.
Each proposal needs at least one iDiv member as participant or PI/Co-PI. sDiv encourages all candidates to be pro-active in communicating with suitable project partners (assistance by the sDiv coordinator Marten Winter if needed).
Working group and postdoc projects have to submit a pre-proposal, Sabbaticals do not.
Submit pre-proposal before 11 December 2019, 11:59 PM CET.
Evaluation of pre-proposal until 17 January 2020
Full proposal deadline is 31 March 2020, 11:59 PM CET.
Evaluation full proposal until 18 June 2020

Please thoroughly read all sDiv call documents! Submit the pre-proposal via the iDiv application portal - no template needed. Submit the full proposal via the iDiv application portal as PDF file using the provided templates. (Submission of a full proposal is only possible if you are invited after a positive evaluation of the pre-proposal, except for Sabbaticals.)

* Registration is required for being able to create your application. It is possible to safe and change data at any time during the application process until the final submission. Please contact sDiv for any assistance.

General Information Material

Proposal description and template for Working Group Projects

Proposal description and template for Individual Postdoc Projects

Proposal description and template for Sabbatical Projects

iDiv Data Management Policy

Joint Call CESAB- sDiv SYNERGY: Coexistence and stability high-diversity communities

Proposal deadline has passed (15 Nov 2019)
final decisions due January 2020

CESAB and sDiv are the synthesis centers of the French FRB (Foundation for Research on Biodiversity) and German iDiv (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research). These two centers offer to host groups of researchers to work on a better use of existing data, information and knowledge to foster theoretical, and synthetic thinking in biodiversity research.

They are now proposing a joint call called “synergy” to fund two theory driven groups of 5-7 researchers (4 meetings per group) that will share their meetings between the two centers.

The main topic of the call will be “Coexistence and stability in high-diversity communities”.

You will find the detailed information about the call on the website of the FRB.

Previous calls

Decisions for seventh sDiv call

Decisions for Seventh sDiv Call

Following our seventh sDiv call, we received many proposals of very high scientific quality. After discussion of the internal and external reviews, the sDiv Board decided to fund 6 working groups, 1 individual postdoc position and 3 sabbatical positions as followed:

Funded working groups projects

sBIOMAPS – Exploring BIOgeographic and MAcroevolutionary Patterns in organismal Stoichiometric diversity
main PIs: Angelica Gonzalez, Olivier Dézerald

sCom – Advancing inference for eDNA and other novel, high-throughput community data
main PIs: Florian Hartig, Douglas Yu

sCoRRE – Assessing functional consequences of community changes with global change using trait-based and phylogenetic approaches
main PIs: Meghan Avolio, Kimberly La Pierre

sDevTrait – streamlining development efforts in tools for ecological trait analyses
main PIs: Alexander Keller, Markus Ankenbrand

sToration – Applying Coexistence Theory to Restoration Ecology and Adaptive Management
main PIs: Lauren Shoemaker, Lauren Hallett and Akasha Faist

sUCCESS – Pantropical forest succession
main PIs: Lourens Poorter, Nadja Rüger

Funded individual postdocs projects

Roberto Rozzi
The demise of dwarfs and giants: ecological naiveté and extinction risk in insular vertebrates

Funded sabbaticals projects

George Perry (School of Environment, University of Auckland)
Reconstructing movement and emergent ecological functions for extinct animals

Lenore Fahrig (Carleton University)
Dissecting SLOSS: Why are there more species in several small than few large patches?

Malin Pinsky (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
Community response to changing temperatures across marine, freshwater, and terrestrial realms

Decisions for sixth sDiv call

Following our sixth sDiv call, we received many proposals of very high scientific quality. After discussion of the internal and external reviews, the sDiv Board decided to fund 7 working groups including 1 postdoc, 2 individual postdoc positions and 9 sabbatical positions as followed:

Funded working groups projects

sANDES – Tree Diversity, Composition and Carbon Storage in Andean Tropical Montane Forests
main PIs: Luis Cayuela, Manuel J. Macía

sCaleWebs – Unifying environmental and spatial determinants of food web structure across spatial scales
main PIs: Gustavo Q Romero, Diane S Srivastava

sREplot – Upscaling of individual species dynamics to community trends in biodiversity and composition using vegetation change data sets
main PIs: Lander Baeten; Markus Bernhardt-Römermann; Ute Jandt

sROOT – Root Trait functionality in a Whole-Plant Context
main PIs: Liesje Mommer; Alexandra Weigelt

sTraitChange – How do trait responses to climate change translate into demographic rates and population dynamics?
main PIs: Viktoriia Radchuk, Marcel E. Visser

sTreelines – Spatial pattern emergence from ecological processes at alpine treelines: model-supported hypothesis tests against globally-distributed field data
main PIs: Maaike Bader, Bradley Case

sTWIST – Theory and Workflows for Alien and Invasive Species Tracking
main PIs: Melodie McGeoch, Marten Winter

sUrBio2050 – Assessing globally important areas for biodiversity preservation and human well-being
main PIs: Thomas Elmqvist, Henrique Pereira
associated postdoc: TBA

sYNGEO – The geography of synchrony in dendritic networks: understanding the causes, dynamics, and consequences across multiple scales
main PIs: Julian D Olden, Lise Comte

Funded individual postdocs projects

Stephanie Jurburg
Microbial community assembly: establishing general ecological principles responsible for turnover in microbial communities

Alexander Zizka
Reaching for the sky: Unravelling global patterns and processes to explain convergent evolution of woodiness in angiosperms

Funded sabbaticals projects

Priyanga Amarasekare (University of California Los Angeles)
A framework for biodiversity maintenance: scaling up from modules to communities

Stephanie Bohlman (University of Florida)
Linking biodiversity and demography through remote sensing of trait tradeoffs

Douglas Chesters (Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Phylogenetic integration of insect community data

Rodolfo Dirzo (Stanford University)
Research on plant-herbivore interactions under climate change and collaborations on biodiversity science

Christopher Klausmeier (Michigan State University)
Synthesizing Trait-Based Ecological Theory

Jeremy Lichstein (University of Florida)
Plant functional diversity and forest ecosystem stability: insights from dynamic vegetation models

Elena Litchman (Michigan State University)
Trait-based community patterns in microbes

Fernando T. Maestre (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos)
Climate change impacts on dryland soil biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions from local to global scales

Pati Vitt (Chicago Botanic Garden)
Phylogenetic Endemism, Functional Trait Diversity and Conservation Status in the Orchidaceae: a Global Synthesis

Decisions for fifth sDiv call

Following our fifth sDiv call, we received many proposals of very high scientific quality. After discussion of the internal and external reviews, the sDiv Board decided to fund 6 working groups, 2 individual postdoc positions and 3 sabbatical positions.

Funded working groups

sEcoEvo - Biodiversity Dynamics – The Nexus Between Space & Time
main PIs: Rosemary Gillespie; Michael Hickerson

sELDiG - Explaining the latitudinal diversity gradient: synthesizing knowledge via data-driven mechanistic modelling
main PIs: Allen Hurlbert; Catherine Graham

sLandServ - Linking Landscape Structure to Ecosystem Services
main PI’s: Jonathan Rhodes; Jean Paul Metzger

sOcioLock-in - Understanding the undesirable resilience in socio-ecological systems driving biodiversity loss
main PIs: Tom Oliver; Emily Boyd

sTURN - Does time drive space? Building a mechanistic linkage between spatial and temporal turnover in metacommunities
main PIs: Zsófia Horváth; Robert Ptacnik

sUrBioCity - Deciphering Drivers of Urban Biodiversity across Multiple Scales
main PI: Christopher Swan

Funded individual postdocs

Léa Beaumelle
How do multiple environmental change drivers shape biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships?

Roel van Klink
Effects of extreme weather events on long term ecosystem dynamics (X-WELT)

Funded sabbatical projects

Robert R. Dunn
The Global Biogeography of Microbes and Mutualists Associated with Humans

Benjamin Gilbert
Project 1 – Neutrality, Demographic stochasticity and ecological drift
Project 2 – Local interactions, Regional constraints, and multiple stable states

Angélica L. González
Understanding the interactive effects of temperature and nutrients on ecological processes: a meta-analysis

Decisions for sDiv call for catalyst postdocs

Following our sDiv call for catalyst postdocs, we received many proposals of very high scientific quality. After discussion of the internal reviews, the sDiv Board decided to fund three postdoc positions.

Funded catalyst postdocs

Adam Thomas Clark (Postdoc)
Stanley Harpole (PI professor), Helmut Hillebrand (PI member)
sMultiMod: Synthesis of multiple predictive models of community composition and coexistence

Guy Pe'er (Postdoc)
Aletta Bonn (PI professor), Bernd Hansjürgens (PI member), Irene Ring (Co-PI member)
Towards the next reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy: evaluating the new greening measures from Ecological and Socio-economic perspectives

Callum Lawson (Postdoc)
Ulrich Brose (PI professor), Katrin Böhning-Gaese (PI member)
Double jeopardy: which populations will become both smaller and less stable under climate change?

Decisions for fourth sDiv call

Following our fourth sDiv call, we received many proposals of very high scientific quality. After discussion of the internal and external reviews, the sDiv Board decided to fund ten working groups, two individual postdoc positions and one sabbatical position.

Funded working groups

sECURE - Separating Environmental Changes and their effects on community traits in European butterflies
main PI's: Oliver Schweiger, Josef Settele

sPRED - Synthesizing Predictability Research of Ecological Dynamics
main PI's: Frank Pennekamp, Alison Iles

sToichNutNet II - Linking ecological stoichiometry with environment-diversity-productivity relationships in grasslands
main PI's: Elizabeth Borer, Anne Ebeling

sFDvent - A functional trait perspective on the global biodiversity of hydrothermal vent communities
main PI's: Amanda Bates, Abbie Chapman

sMonodominance - Monodominance workshop
main PI's: Andreas Huth, Kelvin Peh

sAPROPOS - Analysis of PROjections of POpulationS
main PI: Roberto Salguero-Gomez

sTeleBES - Telecoupled use of biodiversity and ecosystem services: synthesis of concepts, methods and evidence
main PI's: Matthias Schröter, Thomas Koellner

sCAP - Testing the conservation value of phylogenetic diversity
main PI's: Arne Mooers, Caroline M. Tucker

sWORM - A global soil biodiversity database and its application to data synthesis and theory development
main PI's: Erin Cameron, Nico Eisenhauer

sPlot - Plant trait-environment relationships, biodiversity and invasion patterns across the world's biomes
main PI's: Jürgen Dengler, Oliver Purschke

Funded individual postdocs

Duarte S. Viana
Spatial scaling in the assembly and diversity of biological communities

Katharina Gerstner
From plots to landscapes – Towards a mechanistic understanding of land-use effects on biodiversity across spatial scales

Funded sabbatical project

David Currie
A continental theory of biogeography: predicting geographic variation in species richness and range size

Decisions for third sDiv call

Following our third sDiv call, we received many proposals of very high scientific quality. After discussion of the internal reviews, the sDiv Committee decided to fund nine international workshops and two individual Postdoc projects:

Workshop projects:

"Quantifying biodiversity change through time (sChange)”
main applicants: Sarah R. Supp (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Maria Dornelas (University of St. Andrews)

"Towards understanding the causes and consequences of epigenetic diversity (sEpiDiv)”
main applicants: Katrin Heer and Lars Opgenoorth (both University of Marburg

"Scaling shrub expansion from site to biome Manuscript finalization working group" (sTUNDRA II)"
main applicants: Isla H. Myers-Smith (University of Edinburgh) and Anne Bjorkman (iDiv)

"Global Changes in Marine Plankton Diversity and Productivity (sMarD)"
main applicants: Aleksandra M. Lewandowska (University of Oldenburg) and Boris Worm (Dalhousie University)

"Community Assembly and the Functioning of Ecosystems in Open Systems (sCAFE)"
main applicants: S.K. Morgan Ernest (Utah State University) and Mathew Leibold (University of Texas at Austin)

"Synthesis on Pollen Limitation and Terrestrial biodiversity (sPlat)"
main applicants: Tiffany Knight (Washington University, iDiv), Tia-Lynn Ashman (University of Pittsburgh) and Janette Steets (Oklahoma State University)

"Linking ecological stoichiometry with environment‐diversity‐productivity relationships in grasslands (sToichNutNet)"
main applicants: Elizabeth Borer (University of Minnesota) and Anne Ebeling (University of Jena)

"Expanding Neo-Chessonian coexistence theory towards a stochastic theory for species rich communities (sNiche)"
main applicants: Thorsten Wiegand (UFZ) and Stan W. Harpole (iDiv)

"Functional Information: its potential for quantifying biodiversity and its relation to ecosystem functioning. Function, Information and Biodiversity (sFIND)"
main applicants: Keith Farnsworth (Queen’s University Belfast) and Ivo Große (University of Halle/ Saale)

Individual postdoc projects:

"Drivers of plant diversity across spatiotemporal scales: integrating ecological, evolutionary and environmental processes”
Postdoc: Juliano Sarmento Cabral (University of Göttingen)

"Assessing extinction: Crossover of geometrical, macroecological and Bayesian perspectives”
Postdoc: Petr Keil (Charles University in Prague)

Decisions for second sDiv call

Following our second sDiv call, we received many proposals of very high scientific quality. After discussion of the internal reviews, the sDiv Committee decided to fund five international workshops:

"Synthesising Trait Evolution in Plants (sTEP)"
main applicants: William D. Pearse and Jeannine Cavender-Bares (both University of Minnesota)

"Next Generation Models for Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity (sESMOD)"
main applicants: Elena Bennett (Mc Gill University); Gretchen Daily (Stanford University)

"Ecotoxicology for B-EF research: experimental design of aquatic multi-trophic experiments (sEcoToxDiv)"
main applicants: Frederik De Laender (University of Namur); Paul Van den Brink (Wageningen University)

"Can ecological network information improve the efficacy of biodiversity conservation for ecosystem services in the face of unavoidable uncertainty? (sErvices)"
main applicants: Laura E. Dee and Steven D. Gaines (both University of California, Santa Barbara)

"Unifying marine and terrestrial biodiversity at the interplay of macroecology, macrophysiology and macroevolution (sWEEP)"
main applicants: Miguel Ángel Olalla Tárraga (Rey Juan Carlos University); Ignacio Morales Castilla (Universidade de Evora)

Decisions for first sDiv call

Within our first sDiv call for workshops, various projects are funded.

Funded workshops:

sPlot - Plant trait-environment relationships across the world's biomes ("Trait-vegetation")
main applicants: Helge Bruelheide, Oliver Purschke
associated postdoc: Jürgen Dengler

sImpact - Impact of invasive alien species: prediction and quantification
main applicant: Sabrina Kumschick

TRANs-BEE - Synthesising transcriptome data to explore interspecies bee-pathogen molecular interactions that may underpin pollinator decline “trans-bee”
main applicants: Christina M. Grozinger, Robert J. Paxton
associated postdoc: Vincent Doublet

sTOICHFUN Stoichiometric constraints of biodiversity – functioning relationships StoichFun
main applicant: Helmut Hillebrand
associated postdoc: Aleksandra Lewandowska

rangeShifter - Synthesising population, community, genetic and evolutionary dynamics in a simulation platform: a tool for theory and application
main applicant: Justin Travis
associated postdoc: Alexander Singer

ECOTRON - Next generation biodiversity manipulation: Technical requirements for an ecotron platform
main apllicants: Stefan Meldau, Nico Eisenhauer

sTability - Plant diversity effects on ecosystem resistance to and recovery from perturbations
main applicants: Nico Eisenhauer, Forest Isbell
associated postdoc: Dylan Craven

sOILDIV - A framework to improve our understanding of the distribution of global soil biodiversity: establishing the first quantitative synthesis
main applicant: Diana H. Wall
associated postdoc: Kelly S. Ramirez

sREGPOOL - Biodiversity across spatial scales - linking macroecological models to local-scale biodiversity patterns by explicit delineation of the regional species pool Biodiversity and spatial scale - the regional species pool link
main applicants: Dirk Nikolaus Karger, Jens-Christian Svenning

sFOSSIL - Integrating Phylogenies, Fossils and Earth System Dynamics
main applicants: Jan Schnitzler, Andreas Mulch

TRY - Towards a sustainable archive and sharing-mechanism for plant trait data: Refining the TRY initiative TRY 3.0
main applicant: Jens Kattge

sTUNDRA - Tundra ecosystem change: Scaling shrub expansion from site to biome
main applicants: Isla H. Myers-Smith, Sarah C. Elmendorf
associated postdoc: Anne Bjorkman

sCoMuCra - Species communities harboring the outcome of plant diversification: museums and cradles (CoMuCra)
main applicant: Andreas Prinzing
associated postdoc: Benjamin Yguel

sTREEDIV - Using Tree Diversity as an Insurance for the Stable Functioning of Forest Ecosystems
main applicants: Andy Hector, Bart Muys
associated postdoc: Simon Bilodeau-Gauthier

Physiodiv - Biodiversity meets Physiology – Physiology meets Biodiversity
main applicant: Christian Wilhelm

sPHY - Synthesizing phylogenetic measures for ecology and conservation
main applicants: Marc W Cadotte, Dan F Rosauer

sMGI - 3rd Mycorrhizal Genomics Initiative
main applicants: François Buscot, Sylvie Herrmann

Funded individual postdocs:

How does biodiversity affect ecosystem functioning and community stability:a meta-analysis of ecotoxicological stress experiments on freshwater communities
Viktoriia Radchuk

Niche, neutrality and the maintenance of biotic diversity in a changing world
Stefano Larsen

Proposal deadline has passed (15 Nov 2019) final decisions due January 2020