The BEC Group develops and applies state-of-the art ecological knowledge, methods, and tools to understand ecosystem functioning, biodiversity change, and feedbacks in coupled social-economic-ecological systems. We use this knowledge to develop management options to achieve biodiversity and sustainability goals
The BEC group is the institute’s hub of applied ecology and conservation research. The group provides the needed ecological and conservation insights to help IIASA promote institutional, demographic, behavioral, technological, social, and economic changes that achieve development goals sustainably.
The group’s key research areas include:
- Ecological responses to natural and anthropogenic drivers of change, for example, land and water management and climate change.
- How to prioritize conservation efforts to maximize positive impacts at scales from local to global (e.g., habitat restoration and conservation, and species management plans).
- How species and ecosystems contribute to selected ecosystem services and human wellbeing.
Models, tools, datasets
Integrated model for BiodIversity distribution projectionS (ibis.iSDM)
Plant Functional Acclimation and Trait Evolution (PlantFATE)
Projects
Designing a resilient and coherent Trans-European Network for Nature and People (NaturaConnect)
European Union Biodiversity and Climate strategies Assessment (BIOCLIMA)
fairSTREAM
Resilience of Ecosystem Services provided by Intact and Sustainably managed Terrestrial ecosystems (RESIST)
Staff
Gergana Daskalova
Schmidt Science Fellow (BEC)
Jodey Peyton
Researcher (BEC)
Eleanor Warren-Thomas
Guest Research Scholar (BEC, IBF)
Florian Hofhansl
Research Scholar (NODES, BEC)
News
22 August 2024
Meeting ambitious restoration targets in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
IIASA researchers contributed to a new study showing that efforts to meet restoration targets for the globally important, biodiversity rich forests found along Brazil’s Atlantic coast will only be effective with a sustainable intensification of cattle farming.
12 August 2024
RESIST updates
The RESIST project has made significant progress through active collaboration with IIASA's National Member Organizations (NMO). Key recent achievements include setting up collaborations with national researcher partners and consulting with local experts and stakeholders in respective case study regions (listed below).
25 April 2024
Climate change could become the main driver of biodiversity decline by mid-century
Global biodiversity has declined between 2% and 11% during the 20th century due to land-use change alone, according to a large multi-model study published in Science. The projections show that climate change could become the main driver of biodiversity decline by the mid-21st century.
Events
Focus
17 July 2024
Biodiversity lessons from nature
IIASA researchers Silvia Artuso and Juliette Martin reflect on a recent workshop presented at the Institute as part of the IIASA School Engagement Initiative, during which they introduced students to systems analysis and took them on an adventure to explore the amazing biodiversity of Laxenburg park.
27 June 2024
fairSTREAM
In the fairSTREAM project, IIASA researchers from the Equity and Justice, Water Security, and Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation research groups aim to address issues of fairness. This is crucial for managing risks in nexus challenges where conflicting views on procedural and outcome fairness often remain unresolved and jeopardize finding solutions.
Publications
Escobar Lanzuela, N. , Seber, G., Skalský, R. , Wögerer, M., Jung, M., & Malina, R. (2024). Spatially-explicit land use change emissions and carbon payback times of biofuels under the carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation. Science of the Total Environment 948 e174635. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.174635. Werden, L.K., Cole, R.J., Schönhofer, K., Holl, K.D., Zahawi, R.A., Averill, C., Schweizer, D., Calvo-Alvarado, J.C., Hamilton, D., Joyce, F.H., San-José, M., Hofhansl, F. , Briggs, L., Rodríguez, D., Tingle, J.W., Chiriboga, F., Broadbent, E.N., Quirós-Cedeño, G.J., & Crowther, T.W. (2024). Assessing innovations for upscaling forest landscape restoration. One Earth 7 (9) 1515-1528. 10.1016/j.oneear.2024.07.011. Hao, X., Jung, M., Zhang, Y., & Yan, C. (2024). Emergent Properties and Robustness of Species–Habitat Networks for Global Terrestrial Vertebrates. Global Ecology and Biogeography 10.1111/geb.13912. (In Press) Ivison, K., Little, K., Orpin, A., Lewis, C.H.M., Dyer, N., Keyzor, L., Everett, L., Stoll, E., Andersen, R., Graham, L., & Kettridge, N. (2024). A national-scale sampled temperate fuel moisture database. Scientific Data 11 (1) e973. 10.1038/s41597-024-03832-w. Schaap, K.J., Fuchslueger, L., Hofhansl, F. , Valverde‐Barrantes, O., Quesada, C.A., & Hoosbeek, M.R. (2024). Intra‐annual dynamics of soil and microbial C, N, and P pools in a Central Amazon Terra Firme forest. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science 10.1002/jpln.202300107. (In Press) Chaplin-Kramer, R., Polasky, S., Alkemade, R., Burgess, N., Cheung, W., Fetzer, I., Harfoot, M., Hertel, T., Hill, S., Andrew Johnson, J., Janse, J., José v. Jeetze, P., Kim, H., Kuiper, J., Lonsdorf, E., Leclere, D., Mulligan, M., Peterson, G., Popp, A., Roe, S., Schipper, A., Snäll, T., van Soesbergen, A., Soterroni, A., Stehfest, E., van Vuuren, D., Visconti, P., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Wells, G., & Pereira, H. (2024). Integrated modeling of nature’s role in human well-being: A research agenda. Global Environmental Change 88 e102891. 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102891. Martin, J. , Kanade, R., Bhadbhade, N., Joy, K.J., Thomas, B.K., Willaarts, B. , & Hanger-Kopp, S. (2024). Review of the food, water and biodiversity nexus in India. Environmental Science & Policy 159 e103826. 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103826. Wayman, J., Sadler, J., Martin, T., Graham, L., White, H., Tobias, J., & Matthews, T. (2024). Unravelling the complexities of biotic homogenization and heterogenization in the British avifauna. Journal of Animal Ecology 93 (9) 1288-1302. 10.1111/1365-2656.14145. Cazalis, V., Di Marco, M., Zizka, A., Butchart, S.H.M., González-Suárez, M., Böhm, M., Bachman, S.P., Hoffmann, M., Rosati, I., De Leo, F., Jung, M., Benítez-López, A., Clausnitzer, V., Cardoso, P., Brooks, T.M., Mancini, G., Lucas, P.M., Young, B.E., Akçakaya, H.R., Schipper, A.M., Hilton-Taylor, C., Pacifici, M., Meyer, C., & Santini, L. (2024). Accelerating and standardising IUCN Red List assessments with sRedList. Biological Conservation 298 e110761. 10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110761. Gopalakrishna, T., Visconti, P., Lomax, G., Boere, E., Malhi, Y., Roy, P.S., Joshi, P.K., Fedele, G., & Yowargana, P. (2024). Optimizing restoration: A holistic spatial approach to deliver Nature’s Contributions to People with minimal tradeoffs and maximal equity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121 (34) e2402970121. 10.1073/pnas.2402970121.