Section for Biodiversity

Hummingbird sucks nectar from pink flower

The Section studies the fundamental evolutionary and ecological principles and processes that generate and maintain biodiversity on Earth. We study past, present and future patterns in biological diversity, its distribution, the interactions among species and their future fate under global change of climate.

Head of Section: Professor Kasper Thorup

 

Our research addresses over-arching questions about the underlying principles of life.  We focus on understanding the past, present, and future of biodiversity by integrating approaches from community ecology, macroecology, macroevolution, systematic, phylogeography and biogeography. Using a combination of modelling (statistical & mathematical), experiments, and field-based approaches in hypothesis testing frameworks, we shed light on the processes that are fundamental to understanding the evolution of biological diversity. This approach requires the generation and integration of natural history knowledge, coupled with distribution, genetic data and evolutionary and traditional specimen-based research on thousands of species.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research 

Research within the section is organized in the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and climate (leader Carsten Rahbek). The section includes Center for Global Mountain Biodiversity (leader Carsten Rahbek), and Queen Margrethe's and Vigdís Finnbogadóttir's Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Ocean, Climate, and Society (ROCS) (leader Katherine Richardson). In addition, CMEC hosts Sustainability Science Centre (SSC) (leader Katherine Richardson), and IPBES in Denmark.

Research groups

The section also hosts the following researchers: