Dr. Maria Alejandra Parreño
School of Life Sciences
Technische Universität München
Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz-Platz 2
D-85350 Freising-Weihenstephan
Email: alejandra.parreno(at)tum.de
Research interest
I am an ecologist with expertise in biodiversity and sustainability research. My models of study are invertebrates of all kinds in grasslands and forests. I want to understand the impacts of land use on species and ecosystems, and how we can make our activities more sustainable and kind towards nature and for our own survival as a species. I have a strong background in interdisciplinary research and collaboration across scientific domains. When I am not in fieldwork, in the lab or wrangling data, I am doing outreach and science communication, something that I also truly enjoy. Favorite animal: ants! But bees are pretty cool…
Employment record
| 2024-2026 | Postdoctoral Researcher with an Independent Researcher Grant (DFG),Plant-Insect Interactions Chair, Technical University of Munich, project TrophNiche (Biodiversity Exploratories), Germany |
| 2024-2025 | Scientific Fellow at the ZiF Mapping complexity in Ecology Resident Group, University of Bielefeld, Germany |
| 2020-2024 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Plant-Insect Interactions Chair, Technical University of Munich, project NutriB2 (Biodiversity Exploratories), Germany |
| 04/2015-04/2020 | PhD Ecology, Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland |
| 08/2013-01/2015 | MSc. Behavior, Evolution and Conservation, Department of Ecology and Genetics, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland |
| 01/2006-11/2012 | BSc. Biology (Licenciatura), Department of Ecology and Genetics, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina |
Latest publications
For an updated record of publications, please visit my profiles in:
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.nl/citations?user=0aF4yOcAAAAJ&hl=en
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1453-5693
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maparg/
Latest updates
Jan- 2025
Land use effects on trophic niches: We are sorting and identifying thousands of insects from the last fieldwork campaign. If you want to be part of our identification team, reach out! Follow our findings in our iNaturalist project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/trophniche
Phenology of wild bees and climate change: Analyzing data and writing the findings on the effects of overwintering in different conditions on wild bees. Also starting is a new master thesis on how the metabolism of those bees changes when it's warmer or colder outside as they overwinter.
Restoration Ecology and AI: Can we use large language models to summarize a large literature database into a set of testable hypotheses or even practice recommendations? This question we address as part of a more extensive collaboration with computer scientists.
Science communication
Mehr Informationen
Impressions from fieldwork
