Team

Research interests

My research interests focus on habitat selection and movement ecology of large mammalian herbivores. I am studying their long-distance movement behaviour and the effect of infrastructure-driven development on these movements in desert, semi-desert and steppe ecosystems in Mongolia. Mongolia has some of the largest remaining grassland and desert ecosystems that are critical habitat for khulan (Equus hemionus), goitered gazelles (Gazella subgutturosa) and Mongolian gazelles (Procapra gutturosa). In the past decade, however, large-scale mining projects for coal, copper and gold as well as infrastructure-based economic development projects have emerged in Mongolia’s drylands. These developments often pose barriers to animal movements and threaten their survival. I aim to better understand how mammalian herbivores react to barriers and how the detrimental effects of anthropgenic develoments in one of the last big migration systems can be mitigated.

My main research interests are human relationships with, and the conservation of nature in general and wildlife in particular. For my PhD at Greifswald University, I investigated genetic aspects of lesser horseshoe bat recolonization in Central Germany. During the associated fieldwork and interaction with roost managers and other stakeholders, I discovered my interest for the human dimensions of wildlife conservation. As a postdoc at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, I am currently implementing two projects addressing socio-psychological aspects of wolf conservation, with a strong focus on the role of factual knowledge. (You are invited to test your own knowledge about wolves in my Leibniz quiz.) Inspired by this work and my integrative nature education training (Wildnispädagogik), I have also developed a keen interest in human-nature relationships in general and their ramifications for nature conservation and people’s quality of life.  

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Throughout my career path as a conservation ecologist, I have grown a strong interest in social-ecological research as today’s humanity challenges require interdisciplinary approaches. My work has metamorphosed from studying “the dilemma of plants” in Argentina, landscape genetics in Midwestern United States to forest connectivity conservation in Virginia’s coupled human-natural system. These experiences have shaped the way I view conservation issues, and how relevant people’s values are in order to facilitate sustainable relationships with nature.

For my Ph.D. project within the Movement Ecology Lab and part of the DFG-funded KiLi-SES Research Unit, I will identify and quantify which biodiversity components underpin the supply of non-material nature’s contributions to people (NCP), associated with physical and psychological experiences. In addition, I will evaluate how the relation between non-material NCP and biodiversity components vary along climatic and land use gradients. To do this, I will use different approaches to link demands for and values of NCP from multiple stakeholders with biodiversity data collected on Kilimanjaro’s southern slopes. We hope that the KiLi project will provide an integrated approach to help promote long-term strategic solutions in the face of a changing world.

Research interests

My research aims to understand how individual phenotypic differences and ecology shape animal social structure and the consequences of this for various processes such as reproduction and information transmission. Currently, I am interested in exploring how diverse human activities impact animal movement and intraspecific interactions. More specifically, my research project examines how recreation activities and anthropogenic food sources in the German/Austrian Alps impact the behaviour of alpine choughs (Pyrrhocorax graculus). I investigate individual differences in the birds’ utilization of anthropogenic food sources and their impact on dyadic social associations, how spatiotemporal variation in anthropogenic resource availability shapes animal social network structure, and whether and how anthropogenic resources influence population processes. I study these questions using GPS-tracking, behavioural observations, field experiments and a range of analytical approaches such as social network analysis and network-based diffusion models.

Research interests

Animal movement is an integral part of the fabric of life on Earth. My research focuses on the patterns, drivers, consequences, and challenges of terrestrial animal movement from local to global scales in today’s changing world. Spanning the Asian highlands and the American West, I am particularly interested in the complex social-ecological landscapes mobile wildlife share with diverse human communities. Using interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies integrating movement ecology, community ecology, land use science, and social science, I hope to contribute to a more connected world for both humans and nature.

External Links
 
Personal Website
Google Scholar
ResearchGate

Research interests

My main research interest as a quantitative ecologist revolves around using statistical tools to solve problems relevant to wildlife management and conservation. For my PhD at Nottingham Trent University (UK), I investigated the effect of human disturbance on the spatial, temporal, and trophic niche partitioning among carnivore species. During my first postdoc position at Mississippi State University (USA), I developed a Close-Kin Mark-Recapture model to estimate the population size of American black bear (Ursus americanus) in Michigan. My current postdoc position at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center is part of the More Step research project, and aims at identifying state-specific movement patterns of Mongolian gazelles (Procapra gutturosa) in the Mongolian Steppe Ecosystem using hidden Markov movement models.

My research interest lies in understanding natural world better with statistical models. With my educational background of Statistics and working experience in ecology, I like to bridge the gap with interdisciplinary research. My research expertise encompasses a range of subject areas in ecology, including the development of methods for analysing animal movement and population trend, bird community ecology focusing on phylogeny, traits, and environmental variables. My current research focuses on modelling species interactions with anthropogenic features, using species movement data. I want to pursue my future research in the interface of statistics and ecology for species conservation and management.

Website: nilanjanchatterjee.github.io 

I am fascinated by how and why both taxonomic and ecomorphological diversity are so unevenly distributed across the tree of life. Why do some clades comprise just a few ecomorphologically similar species, while others are made up of thousands of species with disparate ecologies and morphologies spread across all corners of the globe? Why do some clades or ecomorphological traits pass through extinction events relatively unscathed, while others are decimated to extinction? What biotic and abiotic factors drive these patterns to ultimately shape the biodiversity we see throughout geological history and today? To date, I have worked primarily on the evolution of mammals through time, using mostly fossil but also extant datasets of taxonomic occurrence and ecomorphological trait data. Mammals evolved over 200 million years ago, carving out niches alongside the dinosaurs for much of their evolutionary history. Mammals survived the mass extinction that killed all non-avian dinosaurs, and underwent a major adaptive radiation, becoming arguably the most important tetrapod group in Cenozoic land vertebrate ecosystems. For this reason, the Cenozoic is often referred to as the ‘Age of Mammals’. Throughout their evolutionary history, perturbations in the macroevolutionary patterns of mammals have been significantly linked to changes in Earth’s climate and environment. Through my work I aim to both quantify these long-term patterns of mammal evolution, as well as better understand what drives these patters. To do this, I use a suite of statistical methods in conjunction with large datasets, and take an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand patterns and drivers of macroevolution holistically, exploring interactions between the Geosphere and the Biosphere.

Research interests

Having a broad interest in the behaviour and conservation of large mammals, I am especially interested in the related human-wildlife conflicts being current topics not only in science but in politics and society as well. One of the most recent issues in Germany is the return of wolves. For my Master Thesis, I am working at SBiK-F and conduct a media analysis concerning wolves in Germany to better understand how the shaping of information influences public perception on this topic. In this the focus is set on the relationships between emotions and stakeholders as depicted in online and printed newspaper articles which have been published since wolves’ return in 2000 until 2018.

Research interests

My research is at the interface between behavioral ecology, spatial ecology, and wildlife biology. I have previously worked on the effects of spatial and temporal variation in food abundance and hunting disturbance on behavior and life histories of Scandinavian brown bears. My current project is funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions under the grant agreement No 793077 . I am jointly working with the movement ecology group here in Frankfurt and the Scandinavian Brown Bear Research Project on consistent individual variation in the behavior of brown bears. It particularly interests me, to which degree such “bear personalities” are formed by maternal learning, individual learning, genetic relatedness, and variation in the environment.

Since May 2020 I am working together with researchers from the Ben-Gurion University in Israel on a project evaluating survival and performance of Egyptian vultures raised in captivity and release into the wild (German- Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development: I-1465-413.13/2018 ). This project is of high conservation priority.

External links

www.bearproject.info
Full list of publications on Google Scholar

RESEARCH INTERESTS

I am a behavioral ecologist who studies how animals to cope with environmental changes resulting from human activities. My research has primarily focused on phenotypic integration between behavior and other components of the phenotype (morphology, physiology, life-history) to understand the ecology and evolution of populations. I have investigated these topics by focusing on how environmental stressors (contaminant, diet quality and availability) affect the magnitude of phenotypic integration and used quantitative genetic approaches to compare patterns of integration among populations and sexes. Within the Movement Ecology group and the Nature 4.0 project, I will use automated tracking technologies to characterize variation in movement patterns of forest birds and will link this variation to broader ecosystem functions (predation and herbivory regulation).

EXTERNAL LINKS

Personal website

Research interests

The conservation of large mammals, and large carnivores in particular, requires integrative perspectives ranging from genetics, population and movement ecology to understand their ecology, as well as psychology, social and political sciences to address potential conflicts with human societies. Research on social-ecological systems provides frameworks to bring these formerly separate scientific domains together and find solutions for human-wildlife coexistence.

My DFG-funded PhD project with Prof. K. Böhning-Gaese focused on wildlife tourism as a cultural ecosystem service, with a specific emphasis on large mammal diversity in four protected areas of Southern Africa (Etosha National Park, Chobe National Park, Kruger National Park and Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park).

My current Senckenberg Postdoc project focusses on the social-ecological implications of the wolf (Canis lupus) returning to Germany. I use methods from ecological and social sciences to understand how wolves and people can coexist in human-dominated landscapes, and hopefully provide solutions for long-term and sustainable coexistence. The Leibniz-funded Transfer Project KnowWolf “Transfer of evidence-based and co-produced Knowledge for Human-Wolf Coexistence” (3 years), aims at reducing the gap between Science and Society on the topic of human-wolf coexistence, across borders.
Within the DFG-funded Kili-SES Research Unit, I investigate which biodiversity components underpin non-material nature’s contributions to people, by linking biodiversity data collected on Kilimanjaro’s southern slopes, and societal demands from multiple stakeholders groups.

With my research, I aim to advance our knowledge on how (changing) environmental conditions and human activities impact animal behaviour, movement, and space use, and thus, ultimately, populations’ distribution and abundance. By exploring these issues both using field-based methods and ‘remotely’ by combining biologging data (e.g., GPS, accelerometer, body temperature, and heart rate data) with various modelling approaches, I strive to provide robust insights that contribute to a mechanistic understanding of species and ecosystem responses to global change, help mitigate human-wildlife conflicts, and provide a solid foundation for effective conservation. Thus far, my work was especially focussed on the foraging and movement ecology of large Arctic herbivores (reindeer and muskoxen) in Svalbard and Greenland. Within the “Nature 4.0 – Sensing Biodiversity”, I will use automated radio tracking data to investigate activity patterns of a forest bird community.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research interest is in conservation biology and how we can use math and modeling to make better decisions regarding conservation. While studying my master’s degree I used bog turtles (Glyptemys muhlenbergii) as a case study for how we can resource-efficiently locate and survey rare and elusive species. This work combined species distribution modeling and intensive field work in close collaboration with state wildlife agencies in the United States to give me first-hand experience into what it means to conserve species at ground-level. For my Ph. D. I am changing my focus to examine how movement affects population dynamics in highly mobile animals. My study system is the Eastern Steppe of Mongolia and the nomadic Mongolian Gazelles (Procapra gutturosa). I will simulate this system by programming an herbivore-vegetation model. To do this I am combining expertise from the two working groups I am involved in. I am a part of Thomas Müller’s group, whose focus is on movement ecology and conservation, and Thomas Hickler’s group, whose focus is on vegetation modeling and effects of climate change. We hope this modeling approach will help us better understand how important mobility is to long-term population persistence of animals living in unpredictable and dynamic landscapes.

Past Projects:

B.S. Ecology, Minor Mathematics, summa cum laude, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA, (Lab of Dr. John Maerz: click here)

M.S. Wildlife and Fisheries Biology, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA, (Lab of Dr. Kyle Barrett: click here)

CURRENT PROJECTS

My work is part of the BMBF project MoreStep which brings together social and ecological sciences to identify societal drivers that can lead to an ecological tipping point of the Mongolian steppe ecosystem. Our role is to use the herbivore-vegetation model to examine the importance of movement in maintaining sustainable numbers of wild and domestic herbivores. The model will also be used to disentangle the effects of climate and grazing on vegetation.

Research interests

I have a strong interest in wildlife biology, behavioral ecology and conservation of large mammals and especially of large carnivores. I am based at the LUPUS Institute – the German Institute for Wolf monitoring and research which I co-founded together with my colleague Gesa Kluth. Since 2002 I am scientifically following and documenting the recovery of wolves in Germany. With this PhD study at the movement ecology group in Frankfurt I aim to give a profound scientific description of the population recovery, especially on the re-colonization process of wolves in Germany, the dispersal and pack formation of this new population, and on the territory size, movement and activity of wolves in the highly human dominated landscape of Germany. The study will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of this controversial carnivore. I am a member of the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe (www.lcie.org), a species specialist group of the IUCN.

External Links

Ilka Reinhardt at ResearchGate (incl. full list of publications)

Wolf Monitoring in Germany