Lisa Merkens just finished her second (public) Thesis Advisory Committee meeting. Impressive progress on the structuring of her dissertation on animal connectivity in cities, including several works recently published: link.springer.com/article/10.1... Nice work, Lisa. Almost there!

Recently, @basilefinand.bsky.social joined our team to strengthen the @bexplo.bsky.social team. This morning, he gave us a broad overview of his past work on effects of habitat fragmentation on ants and carabids. We are certain Basile's skills will be very useful in the years ahead! Nice work :).

This morning, Elena defended her MSc thesis on the relationships between different food resources (fruits and seeds) and vegetation characteristics and alpha diversity in birds in autumn compared to winter, showing that higher local availability of these resources supports more species. Congrats!

NEW PAPER: Here, Marlene Graf and colleagues investigated how admixture with coniferous trees in beech forests affected blue tit breeding performance. It turns out, blue tits are remarkably resilient to admixture. doi.org/10.1016/j.ba...

Zoé Hentschel updated our group on the status of her ant work this morning. She is applying urban niche models to her ant occurrence data to understand whether species are winners or losers with regards to specific urban environmental variables, such as greenness, imperviousness or temperature.

NEW PAPER: this review by @chemodiversity.bsky.social, introduces the concept of a chemodiversity landscape, and compiles evidence for emergent properties arising from the mixing of chemical blends from different sources with consequences for ecological functions.

Robin Heinen@robinheinennl.bsky.social · 3mo ago

An exciting day today. Our work, co-led by @mhanusch.bsky.social and @thomasdussarrat.bsky.social was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. In this review, we explore the concept of chemodiversity and what role it could play for ecological functions at landscape-level. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

A short piece on our recent work in Nature Ecology and Evolution: www.lss.ls.tum.de/toek/news-pr...

On another - still chemodiverse - note: we started two new greenhouse experiments today to support Elikplim Setordjie's PhD work! Today we transplanted rooted rhizomatic cuttings from many chemotype lines into their own pots, and these multiplied lines will be used later this spring.

NEW PAPER: In this work by @dfg.de Research Unit FOR3000 @chemodiversity.bsky.social, we explore the chemodiversity landscape, and review the evidence for emergent properties arising from the mixing of chemical blends from different sources, and what it could mean for ecological functions.

Robin Heinen@robinheinennl.bsky.social · 3mo ago

An exciting day today. Our work, co-led by @mhanusch.bsky.social and @thomasdussarrat.bsky.social was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. In this review, we explore the concept of chemodiversity and what role it could play for ecological functions at landscape-level. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Today, @robinheinennl.bsky.social presented results from the temporal Tansy chemotype stock garden sampling in 2025. While our work often centers around chemodiversity effects on arthropods, the talk also emphasized that chemodiversity is part of a bigger set of drivers of variation to be considered

Today, Elikplim Setordjie shared with us a glimpse of her second PhD chapter, in which she delves into the question: Does intraspecific plant terpenoid diversity beget arthropod diversity? The answer: it is complex, but it appears that potential terpenoid concentrations have a role to play as well.

NEW PAPER by Robert Künast as part of his PhD, for which he develops AI camera traps for arthropods. In this work, he followed grassland arthropod activity patterns following mowing events. A very comprehensive work showing promise for non-destructive sampling methods doi.org/10.1016/j.ba...

This morning Tamara defended her BSc thesis on vole damage to bark in afforestation zones. She studied herbaceous cover in regulating damage. When plants die off in winter, overall bark damage increases, but negative relation between damage and plant richness or dead plant biomass within samplings.

We currently are looking for a postdoctoral research associate (3 years with possibility to extend) with experience in community ecology, and ideally a good match with our group profile; biodiversity, land use change and urban ecology. Please share for max reach www.lss.ls.tum.de/fileadmin/w0...

NEW PAPER: Lisa Merkens et al. have worked on connectivity models in cities, aiming for data-based parameterization. Often, model parametrization involves expert judgments. This paper provides a framework to improve on this to understand bird movements in cities. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Moving from expert opinion to empirical evidence: Data-driven parametrization of urban connectivity models using movement-proxy data - Landscape Ecology

Context The landscape connectivity of cities is increasingly recognized as crucial for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. Yet, modelling ecological connectivity in cities remains challe...

link.springer.com

A while ago, we shared Zoé's tremendous efforts to produce many solitary bee's nests - each carefully crafted, and each straw hand-picked and filed to perfection - to study ao bee-havior, abundance and parasitism in relation to urban greenness. They're now up and running! Well done Zoé.

This morning, @rafaelachury.bsky.social gave his last talk in our group. After six years with us, Rafa will leave us for a professorship in his alma mater Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia. Rafa reflected on the insecurities of academia and the role of mentors along the way.

A short post on the latest project by Wolfgang Weisser and Thami Croeser. They modeled how tree felling in urban environments would impact biodiversity in cities, and the findings highlight the tremendous value of old trees. www.ls.tum.de/en/ls/public...

Simulation: What the felling of large, old trees means for the future of cities

Simulation of TUM and RMIT: What the felling of large, old trees means for the future canopy cover of cities

ls.tum.de

Join us this year, for the BE20 conference, in which we celebrate 20 years of the @bexplo.bsky.social Biodiversity Exploratories. Deadline for submissions has been extended to April 10!

Biodiversity Exploratories@bexplo.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Good news! ✨ The deadline has been extended – you can still submit your abstract and secure the early-bird rate. Look forward to inspiring keynote speakers and join us for an excursion to the Exploratorium Schorfheide-Chorin! 🌱🌿 Share the news with your scientific community. #BE20conference #🌐

A short post on the latest project by Wolfgang Weisser and Thami Croeser. They modeled how tree felling in urban environments would impact biodiversity in cities, and the findings highlight the tremendous value of old trees. www.ls.tum.de/en/ls/public...

Simulation: What the felling of large, old trees means for the future of cities

Simulation of TUM and RMIT: What the felling of large, old trees means for the future canopy cover of cities

ls.tum.de

Today, we are joined by Rolf, who presented his MSc thesis results. He investigated relationships between ant communities, vegetation type and soil variables in a urbanization gradient in Munich. He finds strongest support for vegetation as driver of ant diversity, but variance explained is low.

NEW PAPER: We recently published a Comment in npj Sustainable Agriculture, in which we argue that future agricultural scenarios adopting Smart Farming should integrate biodiversity targets in order to gain any biodiversity benefits, as these are not a guarantee. rdcu.be/e6zB7

Future agricultural policies need to integrate biodiversity targets into smart farming

npj Sustainable Agriculture - Smart farming (SF), the use of advanced technologies such as sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, and automation, holds...

rdcu.be

This morning Alexandra presented the results of her MSc thesis, which included insect sampling on our green roof experiments in Munich. She nicely showed how substrate depth has taxon-specific effects on arthropods occurring in roof plots, while structural elements had rather minimal impact.

Over the past few weeks, Zoé Hentschel has been very busy preparing for field season 2026; as a part of this, she prepared solitary bee nests to study bee nesting activity and parasitism in urban settings. Lots of reed, dust, noise and help from colleagues - but the final product looks solid!

This week Xia Yao presented some of her PhD work on how land ownership types differ in their green spaces in terms of green space and volume. These differences are often overlooked, but private and public lands are often managed and distributed quite differently!

Our colleague, Prof. Sebastian Meyer recently took part in the 'Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte' #APuZ podcast where he discussed the complexities of biodiversity loss, and the consequences for natural systems and for humans. www.bpb.de/mediathek/po...

Biodiversität - mit Sebastian Meyer, Katrin Böhning-Gaese und Gisela Wachinger | Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte | bpb.de

Weltweit geht die Biodiversität stark zurück. Was bedeutet das für uns Menschen? Wie lässt sich Biodiversität schützen, und wie können dabei entstehende Landnutzungskonflikte gelöst werden? Darüber sp...

bpb.de

A few more days left to apply for our postdoc position on insect community ecology.

Terrestrial Ecology Research Group - TUM@terrecolgroup.bsky.social · 6mo ago

We are currently looking for a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in community ecology to work in the Arthropods Core Project of the Biodiversity Exploratories @bexplo.bsky.social Reposting is much appreciated for widest reach! Thanks. More information here: www.lss.ls.tum.de/fileadmin/w0...

Tuesday, we heard a very nice update on Laura Windorfer's work. She is modeling plant communities on variable building envelopes, in order to provide architects opportunities to select designs that are optimized for human- and biodiversity-oriented key performance indicators. Lovely results, Laura!

Last week, Marlene Graf shared a story on how she used insect metabarcoding approaches to investigate the effects of mixing Douglas fir with native tree species on native insect communities. This story is part of her PhD in which she investigates broader biodiversity impacts of admixture.

We are currently looking for a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in community ecology to work in the Arthropods Core Project of the Biodiversity Exploratories @bexplo.bsky.social Reposting is much appreciated for widest reach! Thanks. More information here: www.lss.ls.tum.de/fileadmin/w0...