We welcome inquiries from BSc and MSc students interested in supervision for their final thesis projects. If you are interested in working with us, please first read our Guidelines for Bachelor’s and Master’s theses. This document outlines our expectations and provides guidance on identifying a thesis topic aligned with our expertise.
M.Sc. Nature Conservation & Landscape Ecology
- Influence of local weather, land use and crop type on the functional diversity and traits of butterflies in the Netherlands
- Promotion of characteristic plant species through turf-stripping measures in slope spring fens – An effectiveness analysis in the Oberberg District
- The ecological potential of a flood disaster: opportunities and failures after the 2021 heavy rainfall event in the Ahr Valley
- Mapping the distribution of birds in Sweden to inform conservation decisions on the basis of Swedish bird survey data
Key thematic areas for student theses
Modeling Biodiversity
This includes primarily, but not exclusively, Species Distribution Models (SDMs) for plants, birds, and mammals. We offer expertise in both the development of these models and their application in nature conservation. SDMs can be based on open-access data, and may also be supported by data collected through our lab activities and research projects involving, for instance:
Contact: Stephanie Roilo
Understanding environmental change
This includes the integration of various data sources (e.g., species observations, remote sensing) across spatial and temporal scales – from local to global, from daily to decadal – to investigate questions such as:
- Causal interactions between biodiversity and environmental change (e.g., agriculture, climate change)
- Impacts of biodiversity change on human well-being (e.g., related to food security)
- Effects of biases in data inputs (e.g., gaps) on our understanding and knowledge of biodiversity
Contact: Ruben Remelgado
Sustainable agriculture
This topic focuses on analyzing and modeling the temporal dynamics of crops and their conditions and the relationship with agrobiodiversity. Field monitoring using semi-automated techniques, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or acoustic sensors (for monitoring birds), may form the basis of your theses as part of our research activities. Theses may focus on agrobiodiversity monitoring in general, or on advancing sustainable agricultural practices the enhancement of monitoring and data analysis methods.Contact: Clara Bazzo
