Curriculum vitae

from 06/2021	PhD student Professorship for Plant-Insect-Interactions and Chair of Restoration Ecology, Technical University of Munich
10/2019 – present	M.Sc. Nature Conservation and Landscape Planning, Technical University of Munich
	Master Thesis at the Chair of Restoration Ecology: How does climate change affect root trait characteristics of wildflower patches? A comparison of four species mixtures
05/2019 – 05/2021	Student assistant at Ohnes & Schwahn, Munich
10/2018 – present	Scholarship holder of the ‘Deutschlandstipendium’
07/2018 – 12/2018	Student assistant at ‘Naturgutachter’, planning office for landscape ecology, Freising
2018	Student internship at the Institute for Plant Protection, Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL), Freising
08/2017 – 01/2018	Placement student at Middlemarch Environmental Ltd., Coventry (UK)
10/2015 – 09/2019	B.Sc. Landscape Architecture and Landscape Planning, Technical University of Munich, area of specialisation: landscape planning
	Bachelor Thesis at the Chair for Terrestrial Ecology: Insecticide application for the control of the gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar): Effects on the local bat fauna in Franconian oak forests
2014	Academic high school diploma (Abitur), Hans-Carossa-Gymnasium, Landshut

SECURING FRUIT SET IN A CHANGING CLIMATE: HOW DO BIODIVERSITY AND CLIMATE INFLUENCE THE YIELD OF POLLINATOR-DEPENDENT CROPS?

Advisors: Prof. Dr. Sara Leonhardt & Prof. Dr. Johannes Kollmann

Many of the crops grown in Bavaria depend on flower-visiting insects as pollinators to achieve stable and high rates of fruiting. The animals in turn receive pollen and/or nectar as a valuable and, in the case of some pollinator groups, the only food resource. This results in an interaction structure that directly influences food production and human health.

Climate change threatens numerous pollinator species and aggravates their massive decline, especially in agricultural landscapes. Wild and cultivated plants also show a negative response to changing climatic factors, e.g. smaller flowers and reduced pollen and nectar quantities. However, the consequences of climate change for insect pollination performance and thus the yield of entomophilous crops in agricultural landscapes are still largely unknown.

This project, conducted for the regions of Upper Bavaria and Franconia, aims at clarifying: (i) how changes in temperature and drought affect pollination success and thus yield of Bavarian crops, and (ii) which factors (i.e. occurrence and activity of pollinators, attractiveness of flowers) explain these effects. Based on these findings, the project will (iii) develop strategies (on combinations of wild and cultivated plants, flowering mixtures for fallows and climate change-adapted varieties of cultivated plants) to promote the diversity and abundance of pollinators in agricultural landscapes, and thus secure the yield of pollinator-dependent crops in a changing climate.

The FruKlimaBest project is part of the BayKlimaFit II project network, and it is funded by the Bavarian State Ministry for the Environment and Consumer Protection.