Head
I currently work as the group leader of the project group Causes and Consequences of Biodiversity Change within SBiK-F. I am a plant ecologist by training whose research focuses on plant-soil interactions and their consequences for community dynamics and ecosystem functioning. I have a particular interest in utilising knowledge from biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research to inform ecosystem management and improve our understanding of ecosystem responses to global environmental change.
I am also an Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Ecology.
External links:
Peter Manning at Research Gate
List of publications on Google Scholar
Peter Manning on Twitter
External links
University of Bern, Institute of Plant Sciences
Prof. Dr. Markus Fischer at ResearchGate
List of publications on GoogleScholar
Research interests
I am a community ecologist studying the effects of global changes on the structure of ecological communities and the functioning of ecosystems. I am also interested in the role of plant communities in soil conservation. I have a particular interest in linking ecological studies with socio-economic data to better inform management policies.
My current project aims to investigate the relationships between landscape composition and configuration, biodiversity, and ecosystem services within the Biodiversity Exploratories. The main objective of this project is to determine the “optimal” landscape composition (in terms of proportions of fields with varying management intensities) that minimises the trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and the delivery of multiple ecosystem services.
External links:
Personal website
Research gate
List of publications on Google Scholar
Twitter
Research interests and current projects
I am an expert in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management with a special interest in the relationship between humans and nature, as originally come from the field of social sciences. From November 2017 I will perform a PhD project on the “Socio-cultural Dynamics of Ecosystem Services” with Dr. Peter Manning (SBiK-F) and Prof. Dr. Blättel-Mink (Department of Social Sciences of Goethe University) as my main supervisors. One of the main tasks of this project is to analyze why, when and how specific stakeholder groups or individuals are using Ecosystems Services and how trade-offs between these groups could be solved. To get a deep insight into these issues, the practical parts of the three-year project will be field studies within the three German regions of the Biodiversity Exploratories project. The outcome will be the identification of land management strategies that deliver ecosystem multifunctionality in grasslands and forests.
From 2016-2017 I worked as a Junior Researcher in the Institute for Social Ecology, focusing on Social Sustainability and the use of qualitative and quantitative research methods. Before this, I completed a master’s program with a thesis about how to measure the societal impact of sustainability projects, in cooperation with the Wuppertal Institute. This demonstrated my passion to first think in a holistic way and also to generate societal impact to promote sustainable development.
External Links
Homepage of my PhD project
Sophie Peter at Research Gate
Sophie Peter at LinkedIn