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)
Sophie Tudge
Research Assistant (BEC)
Amela Ploskic
Program Assistant (BEC, IBF)
Elisa Stefaniak
Research Scholar (EM, BEC)
News
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.
17 November 2023
Prioritizing land to avoid species extinction
Amid an alarming surge in global habitat destruction and species extinction, new research by an international team of scientists proposes a new global approach to choosing protected lands which could reduce species extinction risk twice as efficiently as current methods.
02 November 2023
Rubber trees and deforestation: quantifying the impact of rubber production on tropical forests and biodiversity
Two new studies produced by an international team, including a scientist working in partnership with IIASA, demonstrate that the impact of the global rubber trade on forests and biodiversity has been substantially underestimated and new sustainable solutions are urgently needed to address this problem.
Events
Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC
GEO-TREES Launch Workshop 2024
Vienna, Austria and online
IIASA at EGU 2024
Focus
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.
27 June 2024
The ibis framework – an integrated model for biodiversity distribution projections
Researchers in the Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation (BEC) Research Group of the IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program released an R-package – a collection of code, data, and documentation in a standardized format – which allows the integration of heterogeneous biodiversity observation sources.
Publications
Beher, J., Treml, E., & Wintle, B. (2024). 10 years of decision‐making for biodiversity conservation actions: A systematic literature review. Conservation Science and Practice e13170. 10.1111/csp2.13170. (In Press) Worthington, T.A., Spalding, M., Landis, E., Maxwell, T., Navarro, A., Smart, L.S., & Murray, N.J. (2024). The distribution of global tidal marshes from Earth observation data. Global Ecology and Biogeography e13852. 10.1111/geb.13852. (In Press) Nowosad, J. & Hesselbarth, M. (2024). The landscapemetrics and motif packages for measuring landscape patterns and processes. arXiv 10.48550/arXiv.2405.06559. (Submitted) Pereira, H.M., Martins, I.S., Rosa, I., Kim, H., Leadley, P., Popp, A., van Vuuren, D., Hurtt, G., Quoss, L., Arneth, A., Baisero, D., Bakkenes, M., Chaplin-Kramer, R., Chini, L., Di Marco, M., Ferrier, S., Fujimori, S., Guerra, C., Harfoot, M., Harwood, T., Hasegawa, T., Haverd, V., Havlik, P. , Hellweg, S., Hilbers, J., Hill, S., Hirata, A., Hoskins, A., Humpenöder, F., Janse, J., Jetz, W., Johnson, J., Krause, A., Leclere, D., Matsui, T., Meijer, J., Merow, C., Obersteiner, M. , Ohashi, H., De Palma, A., Poulter, B., Purvis, A., Quesada, B., Rondinini, C., Schipper, A., Settele, J., Sharp, R., Stehfest, E., Strassburg, B., Takahashi, K., Talluto, M., Thuiller, W., Titeux, N., Visconti, P., Ware, C., Wolf, F., & Alkemade, R. (2024). Global trends and scenarios for terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services from 1900 to 2050. Science 384 (6694) 458-465. 10.1126/science.adn3441. Dragonetti, C., Daskalova, G. , & Di Marco, M. (2024). The exposure of the world’s mountains to global change drivers. iScience 27 (5) p. 109734. 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109734. O'Connor, L., Cosentino, F., Harfoot, M., Maiorano, L., Mancino, C., Pollock, L., & Thuiller, W. (2024). Vulnerability of terrestrial vertebrate food webs to anthropogenic threats in Europe. Global Change Biology 30 (3) e17253. 10.1111/gcb.17253. Hackländer, J., Parente, L., Ho, Y.-F., Hengl, T., Simoes, R., Consoli, D., Şahin, M., Tian, X., Jung, M., Herold, M., Duveiller, G., Weynants, M., & Wheeler, I. (2024). Land potential assessment and trend-analysis using 2000–2021 FAPAR monthly time-series at 250 m spatial resolution. PeerJ 12 e16972. 10.7717/peerj.16972. Folberth, C. , Wood, S., Wironen, M., Jung, M., Boucher, T., Bossio, D., & Obersteiner, M. (2024). Exploring the potential for nitrogen fertilizer use mitigation with bundles of management interventions. Environmental Research Letters 19 (4) e044027. 10.1088/1748-9326/ad31d8. Hesselbarth, M. & Wiegand, K. (2024). A simulation study comparing common methods for analyzing species–habitat associations of plants. Journal of Vegetation Science 35 (2) e13243. 10.1111/jvs.13243. Lewis, C.H.M., Little, K., Graham, L., Kettridge, N., & Ivison, K. (2024). Diurnal fuel moisture content variations of live and dead Calluna vegetation in a temperate peatland. Scientific Reports 14 (1) 10.1038/s41598-024-55322-z.