Biogeography & Macroecology

Studying geo-ecosystems and the distribution of life on Earth

Biogeography & Macroecology

The Biogeography & Macroecology (BIOMAC) lab is a research group at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the Netherlands. We are part of the Department Theoretical and Computational Ecology (TCE) within the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED). The central aim of our work is to quantify how biodiversity and abiotic components of the Earth system vary across space and time, how they interact, and how responses of species and ecosystems to changing environmental conditions can be predicted and forecasted.

The group comprises permanent staff members (associate and assistant professors), support staff, scientific developers, data scientists, postdoctoral researchers and PhD students. We work at the interface of ecology, Earth science, informatics and data science, and cover topics in biodiversity, geodiversity, conservation, physical geography, monitoring, policy and global biodiversity change. Please read more about our research and our teaching, have a look at our news page, or get in touch with our lab members.

Selected publications

  • Kissling, W.D., Shi, Y., Koma, Z., Meijer, C., Ku, O., Nattino, F., Seijmonsbergen, A.C. & Grootes, M.W. (2022): Laserfarm — A high-throughput workflow for generating geospatial data products of ecosystem structure from airborne laser scanning point clouds. Ecological Informatics 72: 101836. [ABSTRACT]

  • Zhao, Z., Koulouzis, S., Bianchi, R., Farshidi, S., Shi, Z., Xin, R., Wang, Y., Li, N., Shi, Y., Timmermans, J. & Kissling, W.D. (2022): Notebook-as-a-VRE (NaaVRE): from private notebooks to a collaborative cloud virtual research environment. Software: Practice and Experience 52: 1947–1966. [ABSTRACT] [Featured Cover]

  • Allan, J.R., Possingham, H.P., Atkinson, S.C., Waldron, A., Di Marco, M., Butchart, S.H.M., Adams, V.M., Kissling, W.D., Worsdell, T., Sandbrook, C., Gibbon, G., Kumar, K., Mehta, P., Maron, M., Williams, B.A., Jones, K.R., Wintle, B.A., Reside, A.E. & Watson, J.E.M. (2022): The minimum land area requiring conservation attention to safeguard biodiversity. Science 376: 1094–1101. [ABSTRACT] [PERSPECTIVE] [PRESS RELEASE]

  • De Groeve, J., Kusumoto, B., Koene, E., Kissling, W.D., Seijmonsbergen, A.C., Hoeksema, B.W., Yasuhara, M., Norder, S.J., Cahyarini, S.Y., van der Geer, A., Meijer, H.J.M., Kubota, Y. & Rijsdijk, K.F. (2022): Global raster dataset on historic coastline positions and shelf sea extents since the Last Glacial Maximum. Global Ecology & Biogeography 31: 21622171. [ABSTRACT]

News

Plants on Mauritius lose their seed dispersers

2023-03-14

A new paper in Nature Communications shows that introduced species are not able to replace extinct seed dispersers on Mauritius.

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EBV workflow workshop summary

2023-03-07

A short summary of our workshop on Essential Biodiversity Variable workflows is available on the EuropaBON website.

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Building digital twins of ecosystems

2023-02-27

A 20 million euro grant from the Dutch Science Foundation will facilitate the building of digital twins of ecosystems.

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New paper on elections as drivers of tropical deforestation

2023-02-06

In this new paper we tested the role of elections as drivers of deforestation at broad geographic scales.

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Infering predator–prey interactions

2023-01-05

This new paper shows how biotic interactions can be inferred, even if little information is available.

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New ecosystem structure variables at 10 m resolution

2022-12-14

A new open access dataset on ecosystem structure for the Netherlands is available at 10 m resolution, capturing 25 vegetation metrics derived from LiDAR.

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Events

wo29mrt

ARISE day 2023

Leiden - Netherlands

ARISE is building a research infrastructure that knows and recognizes all species in the Netherlands based on DNA and digital technology. The ARISE Day 2023 will be a two-day event with workshops, drinks, keynote speakers, other presentations, and the opportunity to discuss and shape biodiversity knowledge for the 21st century. See more details here.

 


zo23apr

EGU General Assembly

Vienna - Austria

The EGU General Assembly 2023 brings together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary, and space sciences.


ma22mei

Biodiversity & Ecosystem eScience Conference

Seville - Spain

The Biodiversity & Ecosystem eScience (BEeS) conference is organised by LifeWatch ERIC with a focus on “Threats and challenges to biodiversity and ecosystem conservation from an eScience perspective”. More details here.


ma04sep

Open Earth Observation workshop 2023

Bolzano - Italy

This conference and workshop will cover Earth Observations and geospatial data —and their derived information— monitoring regional, national and global environmental and climate targets proposed by the ambitious European Green Deal. More information here.


di10okt

Global Conference on Biodiversity and Monitoring

Montreal - Canada

The Global Conference on Biodiversity and Monitoring is organized by GEO BON and its partners between 10-13 October 2023 in Montreal, Canada. The conference will offer a venue for sharing and exchanging scientific and traditional knowledge related to biodiversity change, from genes to ecosystems; the associated contributions to people, across all sectors of society; and its conservation, sustainable use and shared benefits.