As the year comes to an end, it was time for Christmas celebrations in our research group today. It was a full house, with many of our colleagues, Feuerzangenbowle, quiz games and Wolfgang Weisser in a Santa suit. What else do you need? Happy holidays everyone!

New paper out in @science.org from the LegacyNet. Functional plant diversity and fertilization impacts on yields were compared in a network of sites across the globe. Our colleague Sebastian Meyer hosted the Freising site, allowing us to follow it closely for many years. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

New paper out in @science.org from the LegacyNet. Functional plant diversity and fertilization impacts on yields were compared in a network of sites across the globe. Our colleague Sebastian Meyer hosted the Freising site, allowing us to follow it closely for many years. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

This week, Anna and Sven from our Hainich @bexplo.bsky.social team showed selected results from almost twenty years of Biodiversity Exploratories. Obviously, discussing all that was done in this time is impossible, but it is clear that the project taught us a lot through the years! Thanks to all!

New study by @bmwildermuth.bsky.social et al. in @natecoevo.nature.com They asked whether arthropod biomass declines due to species loss per se, or which species are lost, or because of shrinking abundances of persisting species. 🪲🕷️🐝🦗 doi.org/10.1038/s415...

We are looking forward to seeing many participants in the BE20 conference, marking the twentieth anniversary of the @bexplo.bsky.social Biodiversity Exploratories, which have a special place in our hearts and research group. Hope to see you in June '26!

Lisa and Meret recently had a nice interview with the Copernicus Agency about their recent paper (see quoted post). This is interesting work for anyone interested in spatial modelling and urban biodiversity. A summary of the interview can be found here: land.copernicus.eu/en/use-cases...

Congratulations to my former colleague Sven, who defended his work very well!

Congratulations to Dr. Sven Rubanschi, who successfully defended his PhD today in a public defense. Sven used distribution modeling approaches to map biotopes in Bavaria to highlight conservation and restoration potential, incl. under different climate scenarios.

For his MSc, Frederik Achterberg investigated how weather (precipitation events, temperature, wind speed) affects the visitation of arthropods on arthropod camera traps placed in the field. Weather clearly has an impact, but not always as expected, with complex temporal and taxon-specific effects.

Robert Künast is using AI Camera traps to monitor insect diversity in grasslands for his PhD. This morning, he shared his results in which he used trap visitation data (thousands of pics) to study how insect activity behaves under different mowing conditions. (Mowing = Not Great for most insects)

We are happy that Prof. Inge Ambrecht from Universidad del Valle in Colombia is visiting us this week. In her seminar, she shared insights from 30 years of working on ant and insect ecology, and discusses their close relevance to agroecological systems, and what we can do to improve these systems.

Plant-Insect-interactions & the chemistry behind it - I‘m happy that the 3rd chapter of the PhD thesis of #HumayNevrzella became online as pre-print. Again a great cooperation with @robinheinennl.bsky.social and @terrecolgroup.bsky.social #Plantscience

This morning Lisa Merkens summarized the highlights of her PhD in a short and dense talk, showing how we can use bird ecology, observations and city plans to study and model habitat connectivity and importantly, how to use this to improve cities for biodiversity.

A very good end of the day today with the defense of @afairbairn.bsky.social, who was awarded his doctoral title summa cum laude. With excellent contributions to the field of urban biodiversity monitoring, crowned by a great public talk and defense. Congratulations, Dr. Fairbairn!

Today, Lisa Ott presented her MSc thesis work on ground-nesting birds in agricultural landscapes near Nürnberg. Lisa combined her work for an NGO with ecological questions on how different aspects of agricultural landscapes affect breeding success in ao lapwings, skylarks and grey partridge.

New paper from our JenaTron facility: Bröcher et al. show that reciprocal effects between plants and invertebrate herbivores vary with plant species richness, plant history and soil history. Herbivores want nutritious plants with soil history, while they reduce plant height in monocultures 🐛🌱

A lovely talk this morning by PhD Zoe Hentschel. She has been observing ant communities all over Munich this summer, to understand how city greenness characteristics and environment relate to species occurrence throughout the city. Did you realize that more than 20 species occur in Munich?

Our Chair returned from an engaging week of ecology, discussion, and fun at #GfÖ2025. We were well-represented this year, with many PhD, postdoc and senior colleagues presenting their work on urban ecology, artificial light, grasslands, forests, biodiversity, chemodiversity, modeling, and lots more.

New Paper alert: Meret Pundsack and Lisa Merkens co-led this new review paper that also presents a pipeline to use and combine EU Copernicus datasets to make data-driven ecological spatial modelling more accessible, useful in urban planning and ecology. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#PlantScience Are you interested in plant chemodiversity & its ecological implications? A great SI in @plantbiology.bsky.social organized by Caroline Müller @chemodiversity.bsky.social We are happy to contribute with @sunsicker.bsky.social @robinheinennl.bsky.social @terrecolgroup.bsky.social

link.springer.com/article/10.1... I'm happy to contribute to this nice piece of work by Annika Neuhaus from @terrecolgroup.bsky.social and @robinheinennl.bsky.social

Day one of part 3/3 in the @chemodiversity.bsky.social common chemodiversity experiment. This time, we work on the Populus model system. Smooth process, early finish today @jpschnitzlerlab.bsky.social @ybseymen.bsky.social @mhanusch.bsky.social @sunsicker.bsky.social @terrecolgroup.bsky.social

Recently, we made important progress in one of our collaborative projects in which urban design meets ecology. We installed Germany's first 3D-printed and ecologically inspired biodiversity facade, designed by Iuliia Larikova. A video report can be found here: www.muenchen.tv/mediathek/vi...

New Paper: Fabio Sweet dove into relationships between demographic composition and people's attitudes towards animals in cities, and finds that people's demographic niche is an important predictor of their opinions on nature and where it should be. doi.org/10.1016/j.ba... @theweirdfox.bsky.social

This morning, Lisa Merkens presented a nice study on how to use AI to identify areas suitable for nature conservation, based on the preferences of a very specific model species, the common blackbird. Given the shortage of funds in conservation, this may be a possibility to efficiently use resources?

We often talk urban ecology in our group. But Laura's work stands out (+!). She uses various models to understand how different aspects of building envelopes determine how plant communities may develop on buildings, combining modeling, theoretical ecology and natural history. Great discussion too!

Julia presented the results of her MSc thesis this morning. She investigated the role of city structure and human use on bird behavior and connectivity in the urban environment. Lots of interesting findings and inspiration for future study! Nice work, Julia!

Congratulations to Annika on publishing her third PhD chapter on the ever wonderful Tansy model system and its specialized aphids and the role of terpenoids in regulating their colony growth. With @jpschnitzlerlab.bsky.social and @robinheinennl.bsky.social

I realized while watching this presentation that we often overlook seemingly very obvious things. We always seem to focus on the urban green, but apparently the fifty shades of grey in urban environments also matter for biodiversity. I had never given it much thought. Makes sense though, doesn't it?

We often wonder about the impact of urban green on biodiversity in our group. This week, we heard from Antonia about the impacts of the built environment! She showed in her MSc thesis that buildings, and their distinct associations with humans, also drive bird diversity. Nice work Antonia!

What a great week for Max, he also defended his PhD with great success - congratulations! Stay tuned for more of his research on plant-consumer interactions 🌱🪲 With proud supervisors @ebelingae.bsky.social, Sebastian Meyer @terrecolgroup.bsky.social & Holger Schielzeth

Ana Maria Bastidas, who's doing her PhD with us, supervised by former colleague Christian Hof @globalchangeeco.bsky.social presented her work on functional traits in relation to island characteristics in island birds. Part of her work can be found here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Urban green matters! Comparing different metrics, @afairbairn.bsky.social show that NDVI better predicts bird diversity than vegetation volume. NDVI is not easily applicable in planning - highlighting the need for models including more interpretable metrics. Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Elikplim presented her work on chemodiversity effects on ant patrolling and aphid visits on Tansy. Eli showed that chemodiversity per se may not matter, but presence of specific chemotypes does attract more ants. Ant activity tied strongly to nests and aphid resources! @robinheinennl.bsky.social

Plenty of EnriCo research on forest biodiversity can be found in this review by our colleagues from Munich @terrecolgroup.bsky.social 🌲🌳🪲

As @bsky.app becomes THE social media portal for #Science... here you can dive into the fascinating world of #Plant chemical diversity. Whether in leaves, rhizomes or roots, the variety of terpenoids in tansy is enormous & inducible; coop with @terrecolgroup.bsky.social @robinheinennl.bsky.social

Writing retreat day three ended around the campfire! But a lot of writing was done (at least people were very concentrated and busy). It's nice to see how writing together leads to mutual accountability, which is a great driver and motivator!

After a productive writing session in the morning, we took a short hike up the großer Kanzel, from where we had good views over the Bavarian forest. Group picture image courtesy of various group members. A perfect intermezzo to begin a productive afternoon!

This week we are on our writing retreat in the Bavarian forest. On this first day, the weather could not have been any better. The Wessely House is an inspiring place to write from - if the environment doesn't distract us too much. (The Coal tits are trying hard to make us get our binoculars out!)

We are live, reporting from Laura Argens' PhD defense. Laura is now giving a short introduction in which she presents the background and main aims of her dissertation research. A discussion session with the examiners and public will follow after!

Rachel presented her MSc thesis today. A thorough breakdown on relationships between urban grass, shrub and tree cover and bird diversity (using acoustic measurements). Important insights with direct urban application potential. We are happy that Rachel will stay with us for an urban ecology PhD!

Our former colleague Benjamin Leroy published an exciting review on his work in our group on the use of different insecticides in forest management and their target and environmental impacts, revealing knowledge gaps, and improvement potential as well. PAPER: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A reminder about the Ecolopes event, which will take place in hybrid form next week. Anyone interested in urban ecology can register and attend this event online.

Today we heard from Simon Habermann, who completed his MSc thesis externally in Calabria (IT), where he investigated the impacts of land use on butterfly diversity. Remarkably, land use impact in this area was rather minimal for most species, but their communities were affected. Interesting work!

Lara worked with us to study the effects of water bodies in cities as drivers of bird communities, using acoustic recordings. Surprisingly, during her MSc thesis she found that water bodies only play a relatively minor role in shaping city bird communities. Other drivers seem more important.

Soon, the #Ecolopes project will come to a close. As part of this project, bringing together city planning, architecture, and of course ecology, we have organized a (hybrid) conference on the 24.02.25. Please share with interested people. Registration: b78d3.r.a.d.sendibm1.com/mk/cl/f/sh/6...

Today, Sharanya defended her MSc thesis, in which she investigated the effects of chemical diversity at plot-level on plot-level canopy insects. Although mixed chemotype and monoculture chemotype plots did not differ, chemical evenness of plots affected herbivores. @robinheinennl.bsky.social