Ground-nesting bees & Evidence-based conservation

Team

Annual Excursion, July 2024, National Park Kellerwald

Anne Mupepele

Head of the group


My research focuses on the evidence base of environmental management and how to improve decision-making in conservation. My research objects cover a broad range from insect communities to biodiversity and ecosystem services and I currently work on the synthesis of wild bee population trends in Europe and the effects of land-use practice and climate change on ground-nesting bees.

As I have moved to the University of Marburg in May 2023, my team has been growing and was complemented by new team members formerly in the working group from Roland Brandl who has retired.

You can find the team members from Marburg here, while Christopher will stay close to the field sites and complete his PhD thesis in Freiburg.

Dr. Julie Koch Sheard has joined our team as research assistant / PostDoc in February 2024

Christopher Hellerich

PhD Student

Christopher is interested in the effects of tillage measures such as ploughing on wild bees nesting in the soil. He investigates these effects with help of field experiments in the agricultural landscape close to Freiburg in the south of Germany. At the same time, he develops suitable methods for locating nest sites and tracking foraging bees.

The project is funded by the Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and Energy Sector, Baden-Württemberg.

Viviana Alarcón-Segura

PhD Student

Viviana evaluates the contribution of semi-natural habitats to farmland biodiversity and productivity with help of meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews. The results of her work will be fed into an ecological-economic model that she develops together with our collaboration partners at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart in the project BEATLE.

Her second supervisor is Ingo Grass from the University of Hohenheim.

The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research of as part of a FONA socio-ecological junior research group.