Current projects

The DFG-Research Unit Kili-SES aims at understanding the major components of the feedback loop between nature and people, including biodiversity, nature’s contributions to people (NCP), human well-being, governance and indirect and direct anthropogenic drivers. It applies a fully integrated, interdisciplinary approach to understand major components of the social-ecological system on the Southern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania under land-use, climate and governance change. Among others, it investigates 1) the influence of a broad range of biodiversity components on the supply of regulating, material and non-material NCP, 2) the supply of NCP in relation to the demand for them by major stakeholder groups, the values they attach to them and their impact on different constituents of human well-being, and 3) the direct effect of land-management and conservation measures on biodiversity.

Across 7 sub-projects we will integrate social and natural sciences to see how biodiversity influences society, and vice-versa, in unprecedented detail.

For more details see the main Kili-SES project website

Key contact: Pete Manning

A major challenge in biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) research is to upscale biodiversity-functioning relationships to the landscape scale and demonstrate the role of biodiversity in driving the supply of multiple ecosystem services (landscape multifunctionality). In the BEF-Up project we related the biodiversity and ecosystem services of grasslands to both within-plot management and the biodiversity and landscape properties of the surrounding areas (see figure). The knowledge gained is now being used to upscale grassland ecosystem services to the landscape level. Meanwhile, in the social science SoCuDES project (see below) we are collecting data on stakeholder ecosystem service preferences.

In BEFUp2 we extend the approach of BEF-Up to forests and croplands and use this information to build a GIS based model of ecosystem service supply. We will produce maps of ecosystem service supply for most major ecosystem services of the three regions. These will then be combined with the SoCuDES data on ecosystem service demand to generate measures of landscape level ecosystem service multifunctionality. Changes to stakeholder demands, land management and biodiversity will then be simulated in the GIS model to assess how these changes would affect the supply of a wide range of ecosystem services. This work will advance biodiversity-ecosystem function research, and the Biodiversity Exploratories project by linking the detailed plot measures of the Exploratories to the wider social-ecological system BEF-Up2 provides significant advance for the overall Biodiversity Exploratories project, particularly in placing its results in a broader societal context.

Key contact: Gaëtane Le Provost & Andrea Larissa Boesing

In parallel to the BEF-Up project we initiated the first social science project to be performed in the Biodiversity Exploratories: Socio-Cultural Dynamics of Ecosystem Services (SoCuDES). The project started in 2018 and is funded by Senckenberg in collaboration with Goethe University and the Institute for Social-Ecological Research. While designed to be a stand-alone project the work in SoCuDES is also highly coordinated with that of BEF-Up.

The aims of the project are to analyze stakeholder demand for a wide range of ecosystem services and to assess how conflicts between stakeholders could be solved. These questions are framed within the context of social risk theory, and links between socio-cultural factors and ecosystem service preferences are made. The outcome will be the identification of land management strategies that deliver ecosystem multifunctionality in grasslands and forests.

Key contact: Sophie Peter

Biodiversity exploratories Synthesis project

Truly general understanding of ecological systems requires a broad perspective and thus the synthesis of knowledge across taxa, ecological processes, as well as spatial and temporal scales. We conduct ecological synthesis with the globally unique Biodiversity Exploratories project. The project was set up to coordinate research efforts so that highly comprehensive data on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are collected in a common study design and the data therefore can be directly linked and compared. The aim of the synthesis core project is to ensure that these ecological syntheses are realized.

In this project, our team works in close relationship with the Community Ecology group at University of Bern.

Key contact: Margot Neyret