The WILD research group studies biodiversity and ecological functioning of natural and man-made ecosystems under ‘change’. This ‘change’ includes both alterations due to global and other environmental changes, as well as conservation management-induced changes due to the restoration of wildness. The latter includes ‘rewilding’ of disturbed or impoverished natural ecosystems, but also ‘agriwilding’ – the merging of biodiversity restoration and perennial agriculture in novel ecosystems - and ‘urban rewilding’ – which aims to improve biological processes and increase biodiversity within the green and blue infrastructure of urban ecosystems, hence creating healthier and more sustainable urban environments.
WILD focuses on ecological and evolutionary processes in predominantly terrestrial ecosystems, including interactions among climate (temperature, light, CO2, rainfall), soil nutrients and water, stressors (e.g. light pollution), plants and other primary producers, soil mutualistic microbes, decomposers, pathogens, parasites, pollinators, herbivores, and predators, as well as the ecology of food webs.
