Project Leader: Prof. Dr. Hab. Krzysztof Szpila
Ecology is the science concerned with studying the processes that influence the distribution and abundance of organisms across different spatial and temporal scales. Two important ideas underlie this definition. First, ecology is a scientific discipline and is therefore subject to all critical, analytical, and ethical standards of modern scientific research. Scientists have a duty to explain the world around us and pass this knowledge on to future generations. In ecology, it is also crucial to care for the objects of study, making nature conservation and ecology as a fundamental discipline closely intertwined.
The second important implication of this definition is its multidisciplinary nature. Early ecologists were trained as taxonomists, evolutionary biologists, or biogeographers. This approach is also reflected in our project. The research conducted by team members will cover taxonomy, biogeography, evolutionary biology, hydrobiology, macroecology, and applied statistics. At the core of all these studies is the question of ecological and evolutionary processes that have led to the spectacular diversity of organisms observed today. We hope that this approach will bring us closer to answering many questions that have challenged scientists for centuries.
The team will utilize numerous tools and concepts from modern biology to study biodiversity across different temporal and spatial scales and the interactions between organisms and their environments. We will study terrestrial and aquatic organisms, plants and animals, using the latest molecular, geographic, visualization, experimental, underwater, bioinformatics, and statistical methods. Our research will encompass behavioral ecology, molecular phylogenetics and its application in ecological and evolutionary studies, classical and applied taxonomy, hydrobiology, theoretical and evolutionary macroecology, ecological and evolutionary physiology, biological invasions, and practical nature conservation.
Our activities are organized around five main research themes:
- The impact of human activities on freshwater ecosystems.
- Ecosystem functioning and human well-being.
- Ecological and evolutionary responses of species to global climate change.
- Ecological communities and species in changing environments: distribution, adaptation, and conservation challenges.
- Global and local biodiversity, phylogeny, and insect evolution.
In its current form, the group includes researchers from four departments of the Faculty of Biological and Veterinary Sciences. We form a cohesive team that has proven highly effective in the current edition of IDUB as the emerging field “Ecology and Biodiversity.”