Current Research Topics
The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group studies the structure, function and change of terrestrial ecosystems by using plants, vegetation and soil as integrative key features in landscape ecology. Processes of global change especially of man-made climate and land use changes as well as changes in biogeochemical cycles are studied on local and regional scale with regard to their importance for conservation of biodiversity and sustainable use of natural resources.
Grassland ecology
- Restoration of species-rich grassland: management, site conditions, diversity
- Floodplain ecology: nutrient- and hydrodynamics, soil seed banks, dispersal processes, establishment
- Project GolfBiodivers: Biodiversity effects of an ecological enhancement of golf courses - a building block of the National Strategy on Biological Diversity
- Project RecovFun within the DFG framework project Biodiversity Exploratories (BE) on effects of grassland extensification as a restoration measure - project page coming soon!
Monitoring and evaluation of nature conservation measures
Extensive grazing in nature conservation
- project Year-round grazing projects in Northwestern Germany
- project Effects of grazing on calcareous grasslands in limestone quarries of the Teutoburg Forest
Forest ecology
Peatland restoration
- Project ReVersal - Restoration of peatlands of the nemoral zone under conditions of variable water availability and quality
Arctic tundra
- Project SQUEEZE - Arctic squeezing and tundra protection: opportunities, planning and communication
Completed projects
- Grassland and restoration ecology
project Biodiversity in Urban Grasslands
project Rapid evolution in novel environment: a multispecies approach - Functional biodiversity research
project STOICHIO - Land-use effects on plant–herbivore stoichiometry: micro- and macronutrients
project ESCAPE - Effects of disturbance and seed addition on plant community assembly and ecosystem functions - Monitoring and evaluation of nature conservation measures
project Roads to diversity - Lifelines on sand - Bog ecology
project CANDYbog - Carbon, water and nutrient dynamics in vascular plant- vs. Sphagnum-dominated bog ecosystems in southern Patagonia
project Establishment of hummock peat mosses in rewetted cutover bogs - Effects of Climate Change on biodiversity
scientific steering of the project Fit for climate change - measures for a sustainable, near-natural adaptation of wet forests in the Münsterland to climate change
project Climate Change and Biodiversity NRW - Ecological consequences of land use changes on local and regional scale
project CopWoods - The biodiversity of traditional socio-ecological systems: Large coppiced woods in Germany
project SASCHA - Sustainable land management and adaptation strategies to climate change for the Western Siberian Grain Belt
project BALTRAK - Balancing trade-offs between agriculture and biodiversity in the steppes of Kazakhstan
project Steppe Ecosystems in Kazakhstan - Animal migration
project Messengers of a changing world - the migration ecology of Asian land birds - Use of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) in ecology
project BioComp - Biodiversity Exploratories