Time to introduce a new group member: Juliane Entzian joined us as a new postdoc! "Don’t we all want to improve the world for at least just a tiny bit? And is there a more comfortable way in doing so than just telling decision-makers what should be done – ... 1/5

Don't miss Tom Clegg's (@cleggtom.bsky.social) poster today at EcoNet 2025 with the title "Cross-feeding networks create tipping points in microbiome diversity" where he tries to answer the question how biodiversity of microbiomes emerges from interactions between populations.

If you’re attending EcoNet 2025, don’t miss Jordan Gault’s (@jagault.bsky.social) poster presentation: “Dissimilarity analysis based on diffusion maps.” His work highlights how diffusion maps, a manifold learning approach, provide powerful new tools to track community change across space and time.

If you're at CCS 2025 this week: Tues, Sep 2nd, 12:15 pm, Room 15, Melanie (@mhab.bsky.social) will present her work on functional motifs in foodwebs and networks. Same day, Room 14, Tim (@timmauch.bsky.social) talks about diffusion-driven pattern formation in an opinion dynamical network model.

Paper alert! See the new pre-print up on arXiv by Tim Mauch (@timmauch.bsky.social) and Thilo Gross (@thilogross.bsky.social) on opinion formation: arxiv.org/abs/2508.15377 The paper discusses the very nice results of Tim's master thesis, so let's get into the details, shall we? 1/5

Great opportunity 👇

Meet our group members! Next one up is Fabian Moye: "Hi, I am Fabian, a postdoc in the Biodiversity Theory group at HIFMB and the Eco-Evolutionary Genomics group at AWI, Bremerhaven. I am interested in the formation, fate and function of diversity from chemistry (chemodiversity) ... 1/5

Another talk at #NetSci2025 @netsciconf.bsky.social you shouldn't miss: Thilo Gross @thilogross.bsky.social will give a talk in the Ecological Networks session at 12:45 pm today. 📄Functional Motifs in Food Webs and Networks 📌0.04 Brussels

At #NetSci2025 @netsciconf.bsky.social today and searching for something to do in the lunch break? Then good news! Why not take a look at Rana Shojaei's ( @ranashj.bsky.social ) poster in the lobby? 📄Counting Molecular Structures with Multi-variate Generating Functions 📌Biology, poster no. 20

If you're at #NetSci2025 @netsciconf.bsky.social today, don't miss the talk by Thomas Clegg @cleggtom.bsky.social in the Biological Networks session at 11:30 am! 📄: Cross-feeding Creates Tipping Points in Microbiome Diversity 📌: 0.04 Brussels

Hey, new paper by @cleggtom.bsky.social and me is just out in @pnas.org. This combines a lot of things that start with B: Biodiversity, Bipartite Networks, Bifurcations, Bacteria, ... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... And yes, I know, Fig 1 looks like one of 'those' papers but please read on ...

Meet our group members! Let's continue with the brilliant @jagault.bsky.social: "Hi, I'm Jordan, a postdoc in the Biodiversity Theory group. I'm an ecologist interested in understanding mutualism across a variety of scales. Specifically, I focus on the nutritional mutualism, ... 1/12

5th HIFMB symposium: Your ticket to talks, discussions, early career program, art and more. Registration is free of charge. ➡️ www.hifmb.de/symp25 #marinebiodiversity @hillebr1.bsky.social @ibaums.bsky.social @thilogross.bsky.social @merenbey.bsky.social

Meet our group members! More postdocs are still to come. Today, let's say hi to @anuragsau.bsky.social: "Hi, I’m Anurag! I am a Postdoc in the Biodiversity Theory group, with an academic background in Applied Mathematics. My goal is to encapsulate various ecological phenomena ... 1/6

Meet our group members! Time to hear about the wonderful @laurabarthm.bsky.social: "Hi, I’m Laura! I’m a physicist by training and a PostDoc researcher working with physics-informed neural networks to enhance the interpretability of ecological models and improve forecasting.

Meet our group members! Today let's hear from the wonderful @srilenak.bsky.social: "Hi, I’m Srilena, a HIPP postdoc in the Biodiversity Theory group. I have a background in Applied Mathematics with a research focus on theoretical ecology. My research approach combines mathematical modeling, ...

Meet our group members! More postdocs to come. Today is the great Kate P. Maia: “Hello, I am Kate. I am an ecologist with a background on applying network theory to study mainly terrestrial mutualisms, such as the interactions between plants and pollinators.

Meet our group members! We are now starting with our postdocs. First up is @olejmueller.bsky.social, our most important link to the humanities: "Moin and Hello, I am Ole and my role is Staff Scientist in the Biodiversity Theory Group. This means I fill two pairs of shoes: 1/6

I couldn't put it better, so I share this wonderful post. New paper out on arXiv! It's a collaborative work of our group members @mhab.bsky.social, @thilogross.bsky.social as well as our great colleagues @akfbio.bsky.social and @jdyeakel.bsky.social:

An excellent letter by Dennis Hazelett: www.nature.com/articles/s41... And below is my attempt to motivate people in my group and others elsewhere to read it. Putting it here as well in case it may work on you, too :p

Meet our group members! Here‘s our next PhD candidate @mhab.bsky.social : “Hi, I’m Melanie. I have a background in environmental science with a passion for mathematical modeling. I mostly worked with ecological models and am fascinated by system dynamics. ...

Meet our group members! We continue with our PhD candidates. Today @ranashj.bsky.social: "Hi, I'm Rana! I studied physics for both my bachelor's and master's degree. My favorite subjects were statistical physics and quantum mechanics. In my thesis I studied the evolution of social networks ...

Meet our group members! Starting off with our research assistant and newest member @timmauch.bsky.social: Hi, I'm Tim, I studied environmental modeling in my master's degree. I'm interested in the intersection of social and complexity sciences - particularly in relation to social media.

Yesterday, we celebrated the inauguration of our new building with companions and friends from science and politics. Thank you for motivating greetings and good wishes. We got a fantastic place for research, lab work, discourse and get-togethers. More about the building: hifmb.de/wp-content/u...

New paper out in BioData Mining by @nina-kastendiek.bsky.social et al.: biodatamining.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... The study investigates the molecular complexity of gliomas at the transcriptomic level by constructing gene co-expression networks.

I made a new video: "Three quick questions" youtu.be/L_sPmzka2WQ

Have a look at one of our most recent preprints by @nina-kastendiek.bsky.social et al. The paper introduces a method for analyzing linear stability in adaptive dynamical networks using techniques from control theory: doi.org/10.48550/arX...

Excited to share our new preprint looking at microbial cross-feeding networks with @thilogross.bsky.social : Cross-feeding Creates Tipping Points in Microbiome Diversity doi.org/10.48550/arX... (1/5) #MicrobialEcology #TippingPoints #ComplexSystems #NetworkScience

There is now a starter pack with our group members available: go.bsky.app/4aYCsai

Luckily, we can start this week where we left off the last last —with another successfully completed PhD! Laura Barth defended her work on phase transitions in robust networks. What a fascinating application of generating functions. Congrats, Laura! We are all incredibly proud of you!

What's the best way to top off a great week? For us, it was celebrating Pedro Carrasco's successful PhD defense last Thursday. His research explored how diffusion maps can aid in computing functional biodiversity from long-term time series. Congratulations, Pedro! We are all incredibly proud of you!

Hello World 🌎🌍🌏 We are the Biodiversity Theory Group led by @thilogross.bsky.social at the @hifmb.bsky.social. Ever wondered about biodiversity and what we can do to better understand it? We do too - with the help of math, data, and network science. Follow us for news and paper announcements!