Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg is an efficient, modern university, which maintains the highest requirements for teaching and research in social sciences and humanities as well as in natural sciences. The University invests into renowned scientists, high-tech equipment, and a modern research environment to foster research, research-training and cooperation with industry, policy makers, and public actors. About 2000 scientists are employed to conduct basic and applied research in various thematic areas. Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg executes research grants funded by national, EU, and international funding organizations as well as by industry with a total volume of more than 50 Mio. € per year. Experienced in EU-funded projects from FP3 onward, the University keeps ready an EU-office with highly qualified administrative staff to support EU project management and execution. The research will be carried out at iDiv, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. iDiv is one of the six research centers funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The scientific core of iDiv is formed by five research areas (Theory in Biodiversity Sciences, Ecological Interactions, Evolution and Adaptation, Conservation Biology, and Biodiversity Synthesis) to follow its central mission of promoting theory-driven experiments and synthesis and data-driven theory. iDiv is jointly hosted by the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU), and the University of Leipzig (UL) and supported by eight non-university institutions.
Principal Investigator:
Joerg Freyhof is the Executive Director of the Group on Earth Observations - Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON). Dr. Freyhof received his PhD in ecology from the University of Bonn in 1997. His research focuses on various aspects of biodiversity, evolution and ecology. He was the working coordinator of the European FP 7 project BioFresh dealing with freshwater biodiversity and has a vast experience in various aspects of ecosystem change, biodiversity assessments and European environmental policy. He is also the regional chair of the IUCN Freshwater Fish specialist group and has vast experience in Red List assessments and regional biodiversity studies. He has published over 100 scientific papers on biodiversity issues, especially on biodiversity exploration, molecular systematics and climate change impacts on biodiversity.
His role in Ecopotential is to lead WP2 (Conceptual Scientific Framework), and he is also involved in WP4, WP5, WP6, WP7, WP8, and WP11.