Dr Myriam Hirt

Postdoc

Research Interest

Movement is one of the most fundamental processes of life: the individual survival of mobile organisms depends on their ability to reach resources and mating partners, escape predators, and switch between habitat patches or breeding and wintering grounds. Nevertheless, a generalized understanding of what determines variation in movement across species and environments is still lacking.

My research is focused on developing theory on the emergence of animal movement patterns, species-specific speeds, movement capacities and connectivity of habitat patches. I test these theories by synthesizing empirical movement data in global data-bases.

By understanding the constraints on animal movement, we will be able to predict how movement capacities link habitat patches and create spatial networks. This allows us to predict species-specific abilities to cope with the consequences of climate change and anthropogenic landscape fragmentation.

Short CV

Since 2019
Postdoc in the Theory in Biodiversity group at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity
Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany.

2015 - 2018
Doctoral researcher in the Theory in Biodiversity group at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity
Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany.

2013 -2014
Teaching assistant in the Systemic Conservation Biology group at the Georg-August-University Göttingen

2010 – 2013
Master of Science in Biological Diversity, Ecology and Evolution at the Georg-August-University Göttingen with a thesis on the movement ecology of the grey partridge

2007 – 2010
Bachelor of Science in Biodiversity and Ecology at the Georg-August-University Göttingen

iDiv publications

Bauer, B., Berti, E., Ryser, R., Gauzens, B., Hirt, M. R., Rosenbaum, B., Digel, C., Ott, D., Scheu, S. and Brose, U.

(2022): Biotic filtering by species’ interactions constrains food-web variability across spatial and abiotic gradients. Ecology Letters

DOI

Hirt, M. R., Barnes, A. D., Gentile, A., Pollock, L. J., Rosenbaum, B., Thuiller, W., Tucker, M. A. and Brose, U.

(2021): Environmental and anthropogenic constraints on animal space use drive extinction risk worldwide. Ecology Letters

DOI

Ryser, R., Hirt, M. R., Häussler, J., Gravel, D., Brose, U.

(2021): Landscape heterogeneity buffers biodiversity of simulated meta-food-webs under global change through rescue and drainage effects. Nature Communications

DOI

Berti, E., Davoli, M., Buitenwerf, R., Dyer, A., Hansen, O. L. P., Hirt, M., Svenning, J.-C., Terlau, J. F., Brose, U. and Vollrath, F.

(2021): The r package enerscape: A general energy landscape framework for terrestrial movement ecology. Methods in Ecology and Evolution

DOI

Hirt, M. R., Tucker, M., Müller, T., Rosenbaum, B., Brose, U.

(2020): Rethinking trophic niches: Speed and body mass colimit prey space of mammalian predators. Ecology and Evolution

DOI

Brose, U., P. Archambault, A. D. Barnes, L.-F. Bersier, T. Boy, ..., C. Digel, A. Dissanayake, A. A. V. Flores, K. Fussmann, B. Gauzens, C. Gray, J. Häussler, M. R. Hirt, U. Jacob, ..., E. Latz, K. Layer-Dobra, P. Legagneux, Y. Li, ..., B. C. Rall, B. Rosenbaum, R. Ryser, A. Silva, E. H. Sohlström, ..., S. Wang, J. M. Wefer, ..., A. C. Iles

(2019): Predator traits determine food-web architecture across ecosystems. Nature ecology & evolution

DOI

Hirt, M. R., Grimm, V., Li, Y., Rall, B. C., Rosenbaum, B., Brose, U.

(2018): Bridging Scales: Allometric Random Walks Link Movement and Biodiversity Research. Trends in Ecology & Evolution

DOI

Brose, U., Blanchard, J. L., Eklöf, A., Galiana, N., Hartvig, M., Hirt, M. R., Kalinkat, G., Nordström, M. C., O'Gorman, E. J., Rall, B. C., et al.

(2017): Predicting the consequences of species loss using size-structured biodiversity approaches. Biological Reviews

DOI

Hirt, M. R., Jetz, W., Rall, B. C., Brose, U.

(2017): A general scaling law reveals why the largest animals are not the fastest. Nature Ecology & Evolution

DOI

Hirt, M. R., Lauermann, T., Brose, U., Noldus, L. P. J. J., Dell, A. I.

(2017): The little things that run: a general scaling of invertebrate exploratory speed with body mass. Ecology

DOI