New lecture on #citizenscience and #biodiversity this winter semester in Göttingen! Open to students, but also the general public (exam for students only though😉). Most talks in German. Great line-up of speakers!

We had a great time at #gfoe2025 organized by @christianhof.bsky.social and many others. Good feedback on our analyses of historical bird trends across Germany, a project with @dda-avifauna.bsky.social.

New paper: 3rd chapter of Anne Graser's PhD thesis now published: How #forest disturbance, post-disturbance management and wild #ungulates affect #moth communities: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @jappliedecology.bsky.social

Does the decline of many #bird species also trigger a decline in species identification skills in young people? Are we already witnessing the #extinction of experience? Our new study, led by Talia Härtel, and based on a large questionnaire resurvey, suggests so: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

#NewPaper led by Brett R. Hankerson, @tkuemmerle.bsky.social @kampjohannes.bsky.social @danielmu11er.bsky.social and Florian Schierhorn out now in Regional Environmental Change @iamo.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#Bird #surveys: Do we need to rewrite our methodological standards? #PassiveAcousticMonitoring suggests that expert-based recommendations might lead to under-recording, due to diurnal and seasonal mismatches. New paper led by David Singer; with 25,000 h audio data: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Changes in #grazing patterns explain post-Soviet fire trends on the Eurasian #steppe better than #climate. More empirical evidence that the build up of biomass due to the collapse of livestock systems made Kazakhstan a global #fire hotspot: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Were recent waves of large-scale forest dieback predictable? We say yes! A simple approach to describe temporal disturbance dynamics based on Taylor's Law. Now out in Nature Communications: rdcu.be/euG1A Thanks @tommaso-jucker.bsky.social and @rupertseidl.bsky.social for this great project!

Kommenden Samstag: Einblick in die Welt von Spinnern, Spannern und anderen Nachtfaltern - im Alten Botanischen Garten in Göttingen. All welcome! ⬇️ #ScienceNight #NightOfScience #NachtdesWissens

Leaving the #ivorytower behind: Kick-off of our participatory project on 200 years of biodiversity change, involving the people of Göttingen into university research. Participation in #research is important in times of #sciencedenial Funded by the 'pioneer projects' line of @volkswagenstiftung.de

There is a new open position at our Lab!! haushalt-und-personal.hu-berlin.de/de/personal/... #newposition #phd

#Fieldwork update from our PyroDiv project (uni-goettingen.de/en/690609.html): A Kazakh-German field team is now collecting data on the Great Steppe to reveal the impact of fire legacies and grazing on biodiversity. Great collab between @acbk.bsky.social @consbiogoe.bsky.social and @uni-muenster.de.

Interested in our research? Wanna take part in generating scientific knowledge? We offer a participative community science project on biodiversity change in the Göttingen area this summer (in German) - animals, plants, history and lots of fun! Info below⬇️ Funded by @volkswagenstiftung.de

Interesse, einen Einblick in unsere Forschung zu gewinnen? Wir bieten im Sommer ein partizipatives Projekt zu Änderungen der Biologischen Vielfalt in Göttingen an. Jede und jeder kann mitmachen! ⬇️

Congratulations! With an impressive defense, Anne Graser ended her PhD journey yesterday. She combined remote sensing, citizen science and own fieldwork to study biodiversity responses to forest disturbance, including the die-back of 500,000 ha Spruce in Germany after bark beetle outbreaks.

New paper by MSc student Bent Rech: Large herbivores complement each other in their habitat use, therefore reintroducing more diverse herbivore assemblages likely maximizes desired ecological impacts. See here for full story and contributors: bsky.app/profile/jona...

Check out our new paper, led by Bent Rech: we investigate space use of semi-feral water buffalo, cattle, and horses in a Danish rewilding area. We found that the three species differ markedly in their seasonal habitat selection and responses to resources and infrastructure. doi.org/10.1007/s002...

Now out! Contains a review by us on fire regime changes on the Eurasian steppes following collapse and recovery of livestock systems. royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Neue Plattform zu #Biodiversität und #CitizenScience live! fokus-vielfalt.de Wir wollen Bürger* und universitäre Wissenschaft vernetzen, Artenkenner* ausbilden und neue Methoden in die Breite tragen. Pressemitteilung: www.uni-goettingen.de/de/3240.html... Gefördert von @volkswagenstiftung.de

Our student #moth course runs now for the fifth year - standardized methodology, extremely motivated students and rare species at the famous Kerstlingeröder Feld site. #teammoth #mothsmatter Live updates here as the data gets entered by the participants: observation.org/locations/67...

Meet one of the most gifted natural history illustrators in Germany, @fminifera.bsky.social - amazingly detailed and realistic #moth drawings from one of our study sites.⬇️ smartwork.bigcartel.com

Congratulations to Tejas Bhagwat on successfully defending his PhD with excellent results! Inspiring work on land-use change and birds in the Central Asian #flyway, through the annual cycle, skillfully combining remote sensing, fieldwork and stats.

Fellow Ecologists, The #gfoe2025 @gfoesoc.bsky.social call for papers has just been published. Please submit your abstracts for exciting talks and engaging posters to present in Würzburg in September! gfoe-conference.de/index.php?ca... @uni-wuerzburg.de @globalchangeeco.bsky.social

REGISTRATION OPEN Online registration is now open and the call for abstracts for oral presentations and posters has been published for the 54th Annual Meeting of the #Ecological Society of #Germany, #Austria and #Switzerland. HOW TO SUBMIT AN ABSTRACT: www.gfoe-conference.de/index.php?ca...

Back from the international conference on steppe birds in Spain, organized by @giaeavesteparias.bsky.social ! A great week of talks and exchange....

Successful kick-off in Göttingen: In Climate Future Lab DIVERSA (zkfn.de/en/diversa/), an interdisciplinary consortium will study forest disturbance triggered by climate change to shed light on drivers, and to increase forest adaptability. We will focus on large-scale biodiversity analyses.

Talk in Göttingen about our BBioDiv project on Citizen Science and Biodiversity, by Florian Goedecke⬇️

New paper with involvement of our @rodelnguimdo.bsky.social: Great apes' occurrence in peri-urban areas of Cameroon (with chimpanzees and people collecting resources from the same trees...): onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Just published: A mini-review on post- #fire vegetation trajectories in #Arctic #tundra, co-authored with a team of international researchers @jandt-or.bsky.social 🌿🔥Link to the paper: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

🦬European #bison are Europe’s largest surviving herbivore – but would there be space for large bison populations in Central Europe? New paper addressing this question led by Hendrik Bluhm 👉 just out in Biological Conservation! doi.org/10.1016/j.bi... @humboldtuni.bsky.social #megafauna #rewilding

New paper! Various ways to construct multi-species indicators result in similar trends of forest #birds, but geographical fine-tuning means better representation of the regional bird community. Led by Enya O'Reilly, incl. the German Common Bird Monitoring data of www.dda-web.de. #PECBMS #EBCC

New paper! India's #agriculture-#savanna mosaics are changing: less traditional crops, more sugarcane. Led by @tejasconsbio.bsky.social, we studied implications for birds - those resident in India, but also steppe birds arriving from Kazakhstan such as Pallid Harrier and Sociable Lapwing.

With first sites being now resurveyed, we have just added another 50+ sites especially in Southern Germany: www.dda-web.de/monitoring/h... (+ more to follow!)

New paper! Despite being a global #wolf stronghold, little is known about human-wolf co-existence in #Kazakhstan 's traditional, low-input grazing systems with global biodiversity value. Led by Alyona Koshkina from @acbk.bsky.social and Svitlana Kudrenko, we present results...

Brief interruption in my/our doom scrolling/posting to share a paper I'm really proud of that has taken almost a decade with the very patient @exconomist.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social P. Reich, S. Polasky & K. Boersma www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/n

New project! Ever wondered about shifting #baselines in #conservation? Thought about quantifying historical biodiversity losses? We launched a nationwide #resurvey of historical bird surveys in Germany. Together with www.dda-web.de, we have...

Neues Projekt! Veränderungen der #Biodiversität sind oft gut dokumentiert - aber selten für Zeiträume vor 1990. Ein Einblick in #historische Entwicklungen wird aber immer wichtiger: "shifting baselines" führen dazu, dass wir vergessen wie häufig Goldammer und Star in den 1960er Jahren waren...

Forest #disturbance and #biodiversity, part 2: Led by Anne Graser, we combined a large #citizenscience data set curated by www.dda-web.de and the European Disturbance map by @eoem-tum.bsky.social to predict...

Thrilled to share our newly published paper and my first first-author paper. We used hunting sign data from long-term monitoring in the Ebo forest, Littoral-Cameroon, to explore the spatiotemporal patterns of hunting activities. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New paper from Rodel's fast progressing PhD now out in @consbiog.bsky.social! Shotgun cartridges & wire snares reveal patterns of human hunting activity in the unprotected Ebo forest in Cameroon. Long-term approach with data from 2008-2023. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Want to explore datasets related to our papers? Check out the data section on our website hu.berlin/biogeo. We will try to constantly update and add new datasets. If you are looking for one, contact us so that we can give it priority!

Prospective students: We offer a new teaching module for the Bachelor Biodiv in Göttingen: 'Know your species! Biodiversity recording in a digital citizen-science era.' Species identification skills and knowledge about their natural history...

Join us in Göttingen for the meeting of the regional Ornithological Society⬇️. Preview on a new project launching soon: Establishing better baselines for bird conservation by repeating historical surveys across Germany. (with www.dda-web.de).

Using herbarium specimens to track leaf nitrogen and agricultural intensification in Germany since 1875⬇️

Follow for news on hands-on conservation and regional research in the centre of Germany - very competent and motivated team and large knowledge-base.🔽

Abandoned farmland gets less attention than, say, deforestation. But globally, agriculture is both expanding and retreating. Thanks to @science.org for giving me space to explore this. www.science.org/content/arti...

Long, exciting feature in @science.org today on land #abandonment, #rewilding and biodiversity by @dancharles.bsky.social, covering our abandonment research across Europe and Kazakhstan. Based on interviews with Gergana and Johannes + site visit in Bulgaria. Free to read: bsky.app/profile/scie...

Large-scale forest disturbance & associated management shape bird communities in Central European spruce forests 🐦‍⬛ 🌏 Models revealed that responses are highly species-specific, with shrub-associated birds benefiting from disturbance in general 📊 🧪 🔗

Just out: update on the migration routes and return rates of the Critically Endangered Yellow-breasted Bunting in E Asia. Collated and written up by wielandheim.bsky.social, with contributions by many from across the flyway: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper! Forest disturbance through drought, windthrow, pest outbreaks and fire is increasing in Europe, driven by past planting decisions and climate change. In Germany alone, more than 500,000 ha of mostly Spruce died back in 2018-2022. Led by Anne Graser, we studied biodiversity responses...