Dr. Gregor Kalinkat

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2025-05-15: A short opinion piece on Nocturnal pandas - Conservation umbrellas protecting nocturnal biodiversity led by myself has just been accepted in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. It should be out in June or July 2025. Watch this space! +++ 2025-03-31: Together with Robin Heinen, Jacqueline Degen and Franz Hölker I'm guest editing a special issue on Artificial Light at Night from a local to global scale: biological impacts and conservation challenges for the Journal Biological Conservation. Submission deadline is 27th June 2025. +++ 2025-01-07: A new paper about sightings of locusts, crickets and grasshoppers documented via the plattform observation.org in Germany in 2024 is now published. The work has been led by Axel Hochkirch and I contributed to this paper as a citizen scientist by documenting the first sighting of a Verge Cricket (Eumodicogryllus bordigalensis) in Berlin. Verge Crickets are among the numerous range-expanding insect species in Europe who are rapidly moving northwards accelerated by anthropogenic climate change. The paper is published in the German language journal Articulata, the pdf can be downloaded here. +++ 2024-08-05: Master student Isabell Leppin just finished her thesis project Molecular Assessment of Orb-Web Spider Diets Under the Influence of Artificial Light at Night which we co-supervised together with the lab of Michael Monaghan. Isabell submitted her thesis at Freie Universität Berlin last week. Congrats Isabell! +++ 2024-07-26: Our study Reducing the fatal attraction of nocturnal insects using tailored and shielded road lights led by Manuel Dietenberger has just been published in Communications Biology. For this study we evaluated how a novel street lighting technology developed in the project "Tatort Streetlight" can reduce the amount of flying insects that are attracted towards street lights. I have written a summary blog which you can access here. +++ For earlier publications check the respective subpage.

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Find links to my publication profiles and social media accounts on Linktree

My name is Gregor Kalinkat and I study animals and how they interact with each other, with the environment, and last not least, with us humans (and vice versa). During my PhD I started out as animal ecologist aiming to connect theoretical and empirical approaches with a particular focus on predator-prey interactions and food webs. Over the years since my interests have diversified to include a broad range of topics and today I consider myself also a conservation biologist and biodiversity scientist. In my current position I'm a research scientist in the project AuBe (Artenschutz durch umweltverträgliche Beleuchtung translated as species protection through environment-friendly illumination). There we are trying to implement new lighting technologies and monitor responses of insect communities in different parts of Germany. Check out our project website to learn more.

If you wonder what we scientists actually mean when we say "ecology" you should start here. If you already know about the science of ecology and wonder where exactly my interests within this field are you should check out the research and publication pages.

Despite having been affiliated with freshwater focused research institutes over the last couple of years (particularly Leibniz IGB Berlin, DE, and Eawag Kastanienbaum, CH) I am not bound to a particular habitat when studying ecology, as you can see on the pictures below:

Sampling benthic invertebrates in the Mediterranean (photo by Doro Sandmann, ca. 2004).

Sampling soil organisms in the Swabian Alb (photo by Roswitha Ehnes, ca. 2009).

Deploying a temperature logger in an artificially heated stream (photo by Juliane Lukas, ca. 2016).

DE: Hinweis für Besucher, die Texte in deutscher Sprache suchen: Eine zweisprachige Webseite ist für die Zukunft geplant. Zum Einstieg gibt es hier eine Kolumne, die ich zusammen mit Susan Mücke für Krautreporter verfasst habe. Ausserdem kann ich einen Radiobeitrag über unsere Forschung zu Neozoen im Gillbach im Rheinland verlinken (aus 2017) sowie einen Radiobeitrag über eine Publikation zu charismatischen Neobiota (aus 2020). Hier gibt's noch ein Interview zu Insekten und Lichtverschmutzung vom Herbst 2022.

last update: 2025-05-15