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.
Projects
Designing a resilient and coherent Trans-European Network for Nature and People (NaturaConnect)
European Union Biodiversity and Climate strategies Assessment (EU BIOCLIMA)
fairSTREAM
Resilience of Ecosystem Services provided by Intact and Sustainably managed Terrestrial ecosystems (RESIST)
Staff
Maximilian Hesselbarth
Research Scholar (BEC)
Juliette Martin
Research Scholar (BEC, EQU)
Piero Visconti
Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar (BEC)
Laura Graham
IIASA-NERC Research Fellow (BEC)
News
11 May 2023
Nature is changing as land abandonment increases
When people leave their rural lives behind to seek their fortunes in the city or agriculture is no longer profitable, the lands they toiled on are often left unused. A new perspective piece in Science shows that these abandoned lands could be both an opportunity and a threat for biodiversity, and highlights why abandoned lands are critical in the assessment of global restoration and conservation targets.
22 March 2023
Petr Havlík appointed as Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program Director
Petr Havlík has been appointed to lead the IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources (BNR) Program.
01 March 2023
European conservation leaders gather to boost collective dialogue for a Trans-European Nature Network
More than 70 leading EU policy and governmental decision makers came together to lay the foundation for a bold new vision for Europe's nature protection in the first NaturaConnect stakeholder event this year.
Events
23 April 2023 Vienna, Austria & online
IIASA at EGU 2023
28 February 2023 Brussels
First NaturaConnect Stakeholder Event
Focus
20 April 2023
2030 nature targets agreed in December may already be slipping out of reach
IIASA researcher Richard Cornford and colleagues discuss the need for urgent action to stop biodiversity declines, and caution that ambitious targets to stop these declines by 2030 may already be slipping out of reach, in an article just published in The Conversation.
28 March 2023
The future of biodiversity monitoring in Europe
Policy Brief #37, March 2023. Increasing the policy impact and effectiveness of biodiversity monitoring in Europe: current state and gaps.
16 December 2022
100 times around the world: why you should bike to work
Florian Hofhansl reports on the IIASA Social and Cultural Association (SOCU)’s participation in the 2022 edition of the Lower Austria cycling initiative – Niederösterreich radelt.
Publications
Rius, B.F., Filho, J.P.D., Fleischer, K., Hofhansl, F. , Blanco Casagrande, C., Rammig, A., Domingues Ferreira, T., & Lapola Montenegro, D. (2023). Higher functional diversity improves modeling of Amazon forest carbon storage. Ecological Modelling 481 e110323. 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2023.110323.
Daskalova, G. & Kamp, J. (2023). Abandoning land transforms biodiversity. Science 380 (6645) 581-583. 10.1126/science.adf1099.
Kortz, A. , Moyes, F., Pivello, V.R., Pyšek, P., Dornelas, M., Visconti, P., & Magurran, A.E. (2023). Elevated compositional change in plant assemblages linked to invasion. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 290 (1998) 10.1098/rspb.2022.2450.
Scolobig, A., Linnerooth-Bayer, J., Pelling, M., Martin, J. , Deubelli, T. , Liu, W. , & Oen, A. (2023). Transformative adaptation through nature-based solutions: a comparative case study analysis in China, Italy, and Germany. Regional Environmental Change 23 (2) e69. 10.1007/s10113-023-02066-7.
Schaap, K.J., Fuchslueger, L., Quesada, C.A., Hofhansl, F. , Valverde-Barrantes, O., Camargo, P.B., & Hoosbeek, M.R. (2023). Seasonal fluctuations of extracellular enzyme activities are related to the biogeochemical cycling of C, N and P in a tropical terra-firme forest. Biogeochemistry 10.1007/s10533-022-01009-4.
Howlett, K., Lee, H.‐Y., Jaffé, A., Lewis, M. , & Turner, E.C. (2023). Wildlife documentaries present a diverse, but biased, portrayal of the natural world. People and Nature 10.1002/pan3.10431. (In Press)
Jellesmark, S., Ausden, M., Blackburn, T.M., Hoffmann, M., McRae, L., Visconti, P., & Gregory, R.D. (2023). The effect of conservation interventions on the abundance of breeding waders within nature reserves in the United Kingdom. Ibis 165 (1) 69-81. 10.1111/ibi.13106.
McCrea, R., King, R., Graham, L., & Börger, L. (2023). Realising the promise of large data and complex models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 14 (1) 4-11. 10.1111/2041-210X.14050.
Cornford, R. , Spooner, F., McRae, L., Purvis, A., & Freeman, R. (2023). Ongoing over-exploitation and delayed responses to environmental change highlight the urgency for action to promote vertebrate recoveries by 2030. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 290 (1997) e20230464. 10.1098/rspb.2023.0464.
Dornelas, M., Chase, J.M., Gotelli, N.J., Magurran, A.E., McGill, B.J., Antão, L.H., Blowes, S.A., Daskalova, G. , Leung, B., Martins, I.S., Moyes, F., Myers-Smith, I.H., Thomas, C.D., & Vellend, M. (2023). Looking back on biodiversity change: lessons for the road ahead. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 378 (1881) e20220199. 10.1098/rstb.2022.0199.