Conservation Biology Göttingen

Three weeks left to apply!

picture credits: Ruslan Urazaliyev (flock with livestock), Johannes Kamp/Narkyz Makhmet (please don't use without permission).

For those with deeper interest here some links to earlier analysis:
Migration: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Demography: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Habitat: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

or to redistribute in #Kazakhstan - perhaps because of changing patterns in habitat availability? Stay tuned for another paper!

Data collection at the breeding grounds has been coordinated by @acbk.bsky.social (M. Koshkin/R. Urazaliyev). We are currently summarizing population trends in relation to weather/grazing pressure - birds seem either to continue to decline locally despite predicted higher habitat availability....

Great collab (as usual!) with @tkuemmerle.bsky.social @biogeoberlin.bsky.social and @acbk.bsky.social, see here for a nice paper summary by Tobias: bsky.app/profile/tkue...

Ever heard of #SociableLapwing? Easily one of the coolest birds on earth!
Led by @tejasconsbio.bsky.social we just published insight into habitat suitability change during the entire #annualcycle.

Read here #openaccess: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Job Offer: PhD Position Project bAImo: artificial intelligence for insect monitoring 3 years (initially) 65% TV-L Background: photo of a brown butterfly (Pyronia tithonus) on a purple flower

Come work with us! 🪲For our new project bAImo we are searching for a PhD researcher combining modelling 💻 with ecological expertise, aiming to improve interdisciplinary approaches to insect monitoring 🔎🐝 please visit tinyurl.com/bAImo-PhDoffer for more details. Looking forward to your application 🦗😊

Please share widely if you can!

Come work with us! #PhD position on #ecosystem and #biodiversity effects of large #herbivores on the Eurasian steppes now announced: www.euraxess.de/jobs/395512

Nice combination of fieldwork and meta-analysis, co-supervised by @jonastrepel.bsky.social and ejlundgren.github.io

Beautiful Sunset in Kaingo Private Game Reserve, one of our fieldsites

A white rhino in Dabchick Wildlife Reserve, one of our fieldsites

Woody savanna landscape in Swebeswebe Nature Reserve, on of our fieldsites

Overview of the reserves in our study sites. Shows the location of 10 included reserves with pictograms indicating the largest herbivore in each.

Excited to share that my first PhD chapter just got published in @animalecology.bsky.social! You can check it out here: doi.org/10.1111/1365.... Based on fieldwork in the beautiful Waterberg Biosphere Reserve in South Africa, we show that.. (1/3)

Come and join us! Interesting talks, lively discussions, great speakers! (In German.)

Christmas market and dinner with the lab (and some friends of the lab)❄️

Artenschutzkonferenz: Die Crux mit den Schutzgebieten Die Welt-Artenschutzkonferenz setzt sich für bedrohte Arten ein. Ein Ziel des Übereinkommens für die biologische Vielfalt: 30 Prozent der weltweiten Landesfläche soll unter Schutz. Wie weit ist Deutsc...

Do #protectedareas work? Some of our research on the topic was featured in Germany's prime news channel yesterday:
www.tagesschau.de/wissen/klima...

Scientific paper on the topic summarizing research by Femke Pflüger et al. (free access): www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Big congratulations to Rodel for defending his PhD thesis with flying colours!

New paper - outcome from Shirko Shokri's PhD thesis: Weather and water abstraction drive changes in waterbird communities of Iranian wetlands: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

with @dda-avifauna.bsky.social @vlinderstichting.bsky.social @leibnizlib.bsky.social @foertax.bsky.social @mitforschen.bsky.social, funded by @volkswagenstiftung.de

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.

Das Konfliktfeld Wiederbewaldung - Wilddichte besteht natürlich weiter, aber wir sagen ja nicht, dass alle und sämtliche Störungsflächen hohe Wilddichten beherbergen sollen.

....die Leute sind aber oft begeistert, wenn man ihnen klar macht, wie wichtig Nachtfalterarten doch für die Bestäubung ihrer Blumen sind, oder zweigt wie sich beim nächtlichen Lichtfang Fledermäuse einfinden, die gerade die "schädlichen" Noctuiden wegfangen.

...und die Multifunktionalität von Wäldern ist allgemein akzeptiert (incl. Biodiversitätserhalt). Da hat sich in den vergangenen Jahren/Jahrzehnten doch viel getan.

Wir haben im Forstamt Lauterberg (Hendrik Rumpf ist Mitautor) ausgesprochen aufgeschlossene Kooperationspartner, die biologische Vielfalt verstehen und erhalten wollen. Auch auf Leitungsebene der Landesforsten werden wir bei solchen Studien stark unterstützt...

Funded largely by @umweltstiftung.bsky.social‬, supported by Harz National Park and Niedersächsische Landesforsten.

We conclude that management should aim at diverse management strategies creating vegetation heterogeneity, that is, combining unlogged and salvage-logged sites. Ungulate management should allow access to disturbed areas for browsing and grazing.

Disturbance type, such as windthrow or bark beetle, and post-disturbance management, e.g. salvage logging, both had an effect on community composition.

Higher wild ungulate densities (Red Deer, Roe Deer and Wild Boar) enforced the positive effect of disturbance, especially 12–15 years after disturbance.

Major results: Canopy opening due to tree die-back boosts taxonomic and functional diversity. Consistently more species in young successional stages compared to mature Spruce.

Across 40 sites, over 2 years and 3-4 sampling rounds per year, we caught 52 000 (!) macro-moth specimens of ca. 400 species.

Perhaps for the first time in such a large study, we used live trapping throughout (+some DNA barcoding). The data were entered into an open #citizenscience database and validated by experts: observation.org/users/335304...