Our workgroup studies how biodiversity is shaped by global change in terrestrial ecosystems. We focus on species interaction networks, plant-pollinator relationships, microbial communities, and ecosystem recovery, using field ecology, molecular tools, drones, bioinformatics, and AI-supported workflows.
© Alexander Keller LMU
Our research examines how land use change, climatic variability, urbanisation, and ecological restoration restructure communities and alter interactions among species. We are particularly interested in whether ecosystems recover after disturbance, reorganise into new ecological states, or lose functional connectivity across landscapes. To address these questions, we investigate resource landscapes, facilitation processes, interaction asymmetries, and the mechanisms that shape biodiversity across environmental and successional gradients.
Our work spans temperate, tropical, and subtropical systems and is strongly embedded in international collaborations. Across projects, we aim to understand how biodiversity functions, how it responds to human driven environmental change, and how ecological knowledge can support the conservation and restoration of natural systems.
© Alexander Keller
Methodologically, we combine field ecology, pollination biology, animal ecology, DNA metabarcoding, microbiome analyses, drone based monitoring, bioinformatics, and AI supported analytical workflows. This allows us to connect molecular, organismal, community, and landscape level data. A major aim of the group is to develop reproducible tools and predictive frameworks for biodiversity monitoring, species interaction research, and ecosystem recovery.
The group is currently involved in several collaborative research frameworks, including REASSEMBLY (https://www.reassembly.de), ANDIV (https://www.andiv.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/), ProPollSoil (https://www.propollsoil.eu), NutriB2 (https://nutrib2.project.uj.edu.pl), and the Biodiversity Exploratories (https://www.biodiversity-exploratories.de/de/) projects MicroBEEs, MacroBEEs, AnthoDiv, and IntraFlor.
I am an ecologist from Brazil currently pursuing my PhD at the Technical University of Munich. My main research interest is pollination ecology, particularly the drivers of pollination network assembly and reassembly, spatiotemporal patterns of plant-pollinator interactions, and pollinator functional ecology. Most of my research has focused on nectarivorous bats in Latin America, especially in seasonally dry environments such as the Caatinga Dry Forest and the Brazilian Cerrado. For my doctoral thesis, I am investigating the reassembly of diurnal and nocturnal plant-pollinator interactions following disturbance in a tropical lowland rainforest in Ecuador, a project linked to the DFG-funded Reassembly research unit (https://www.reassembly.de/). Additionally, I am also studying the nutritional ecology of nectarivorous vertebrates on the island of Curaçao, as part of the EU-funded Butterfly project (https://butterfly-europe.eu/).
Intraspecific variation is fundamental to evolution, enabling local adaptation and enhancing species resilience to environmental change. Because biological interactions occur at the individual level and depend on their specific phenotypes, intraspecific variation can strongly shape interaction patterns and outcomes. The IntraFlor project examines how variation among individuals influences plant–pollinator interactions, focusing on flowering plants in grasslands.
Previous studies and our preliminary data from the Biodiversity Exploratories show that land use and management strongly affect variation in floral traits known to influence pollinator visitation. In IntraFlor, we investigate how grassland management and population genetic diversity drive intraspecific variation in floral traits, and how this variation affects pollinator behavior and plant reproductive success.
Specifically, we aim to (i) quantify relationships between grassland management and intraspecific variation in morphological, physiological, and chemical floral traits across space and time; (ii) assess how this variation shapes individual pollinator foraging behavior; and (iii) determine its effects on plant pollination success.
We combine field-based measurements of floral morphology and physiology with laboratory analyses of floral chemistry. Pollinator responses are assessed through DNA matabarcoding of pollen collected by bumblebees and pollination success is evaluated through field sampling and greenhouse experiments. Overall, IntraFlor will advance understanding of how land use and intraspecific floral trait variation interact to influence pollinator behavior, plant–pollinator networks, and the ecosystem service of pollination.
My research interests include community and network ecology, and more specifically pollination ecology. My PhD research aims to understand how plant–pollinator interactions contribute to the recovery of the Neotropical Chocó rainforest in northwestern Ecuador as part of the Reassembly Research Unit (https://www.reassembly.de/). Specifically, I focus the role of pollen flux in forest regeneration, considering how plant and pollinator functional traits, together with the spatial distribution of floral resources, shape pollination networks across a landscape gradient ranging from active pastures to undisturbed old-growth forests.
