Environmental Change Ecology, Biodiversity and Sustainability
- Speakers: Christa Schleper and Stefan Dullinger
Human beings are degrading natural ecosystems and endangering their biodiversity. According to recent estimates, one million species will become extinct. The consequences that such an enormous extinction will have for essential ecosystem services can hardly be foreseen, but will potentially be massive. Research in this area investigates how climate change and changes in land use, use and overuse of the oceans, biological invasions and environmental pollution influence the functions of terrestrial, marine and limnic ecosystems, and how these changes impact the taxonomical, functional and phylogenetic diversity at all levels of biological organisation, from genes to landscapes.
© Jakob Schelker: Measurement of CO2 emissions during winter, Lake Lunz
© Bea Maas
© Bea Maas
© Dep. of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology
Researchers in this area further work on topics related to systems ecology and agroecology, and aim to intensify the study of the biogenic production of greenhouse gases and plastics, as well as of the biological accumulation of heavy metals, biocides and pharmaceutical substances in terrestrial and aquatic food chains. The range of methodologies used by the research teams in this area include technologies of molecular biology, ecophysiology, biogeochemistry, and ecological genomics, as well as social ecology and macroecology, and comprise statistical and mathematical modelling approaches. Research in this field is aimed at improving the understanding of ecosystemic processes of change and their connection with the extinction of species. This understanding provides a basis for effective conservation and restoration measures. In addition, this research area endeavours to raise awareness, among students and the general public, of the current biodiversity crisis.