People

Senior scientists

• Christine Sheppard: Invasive plants and global change

• Jörn Pagel: Statistical ecology

• Mialy Razanajatovo: Trait-based understanding of novel interactions

PhD Students

• Huw Cooksley: Plant life histories and biotic interactions in South African Fynbos

• Hanna Walter: Trait-based models of community dynamics

• Damaris Cardona Tejada: Birds for agriculture: ecosystem services of birds in a coffee-growing landscape 

• Freya Zettl: Impacts of agricultural management and agri-environmental schemes on endangered and noxious weeds (co-supervisor)

• Alexander Neu: Temporal dynamics of plant-animal interaction networks (co-supervisor)

Alumni (selection)

• Nataša Lukić (PhD student until 2023): Transgenerational plasticity in plants (Assistant Professor, University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina)

• Marco Brendel (PhD student until 2023): Temporal dynamics of plant invasions (Scientist, German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, BfN)

• Jinlei Zhu: (Postdoc until 2022): Experiments and mechanistic modelling on seed dispersal by wind (current position: Researcher, Chinese Academy of Forestry, China)

• Dominique Lamonica (Postdoc until 2020): Data-driven models of forest dynamics (current position: Postdoc, INRAE Lyon, France)

• Julia Walter (Postdoc until 2019): Biotic interactions in grassland ecosystems (current position: Permanent Research Scientist, LTZ Augustenberg, Germany)

• Martina Treurnicht (PhD student until 2017): Demographic, functional and phylogenetic determinants of large-scale niches in South African Proteaceae (current position: Postdoc, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa)

• Alexander Kubisch (Postdoc until 2016): Eco-evolutionary dynamics under global change (current position: Data Scientist, prognostica GmbH, Karlsruhe, Germany)

• Henning Nottebrock (PhD student until 2015): Spatial and functional determinants of lifetime fecundity in serotinous shrub communities (current position: Lecturer, University of Montpellier, France)

• Susanne Lachmuth (PhD student until 2012): Understanding and predicting the invasion dynamics of the South-African Ragwort Senecio inaequidens in Central Europe (current position: Assistant Research Scientist, University of Maryland, USA)

• Carsten Buchmann (PhD student until 2012): Modelling the structuring of animal communities in heterogeneous landscapes - the role of individual home range formation, foraging movement, competition and habitat configuration (current position: Research Engineer, University of Hohenheim, Germany)

• Juliano Sarmento Cabral (PhD student until 2009): Ecological processes determining the range dynamics of plant species, and their consequences for biodiversity conservation in the face of environmental change (current position: Associate Professor, University of Birmingham, UK)

• Anna Kuparinen (visiting PhD student and Postdoc, 2003-2009): Eco-evolutionary dynamics of forest trees and genetically-modified plants (current position: Professor, University of Jyväskylä, Finland)