Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate

Danish Nature

About Danish Nature

With its fertile soils, Denmark is one of the most heavily cultivated countries in the world, but yet supporting rich natural habitats and associated biodiversity. New national conservation initiatives seek to halt biodiversity loss, but pressures from land use, global change and infrastructure projects represent a continuous challenge. We actively engage in identifying society relevant solutions by case-specific basal and applied research, as well as by engagement in citizen science and outreach projects

Our overall approach

By combining field research, socioeconomic studies, and systematic conservation tools we explore how conservation works in real settings, and use this knowledge to provide evidence based advisory with impact on Danish nature policy. More specifically, we focus on:

Restoration of biodiversity and natural ecosystem functioning in degraded habitats
Optimal selection of areas to halt biodiversity loss and provide nature based solutions in a green transition
Wildlife and health with a focus on vector borne parasites and viruses
The socio-economics of nature conservation with a focus on ecosystem services and willingness to pay
Outreach and development of teaching materials based on the full research portfolio of CMEC
Citizen science as a tool to engage the broader public in biodiversity research and conservation

Research projects

Some of our research projects within the theme of Danish Nature are described below.

Habitat and species management

Conservation Science, including habitat and species management, is a broad biological discipline that covers all aspects of understanding how species, habitats and ecosystem services are changing in a world increasingly dominated by humans.

Tracking Golden Eagles

In this project, we track golden eagles with GPS technology to understand their movement patterns, habitat requirements and general use of non-breeding. The technology provides the possibility to explore their habitat use and home ranges across the annual cycle. The project also aims to determine the source population to the Danish breeding birds and investigate genetic relationship within the Danish population.

Read more about the Golden Eagles

Contact

Associate Professor Anders P. Tøttrup

Management and biodiversity in Danish beech forests

We combine experimental approaches to create deadwood and veteran trees with investigations of existing mature beech stands to understand the links between management, habitat diversity and biodiversity in Danish beech forests. The project has a multi-taxa approach (fungi, lichens, bryophytes, vascular plants, insects, birds) and include economic valuation with the aim to develop cost-effective evidence-based management tools for forest biodiversity.

Contact

Associate Professor Jacob Heilmann-Clausen
Professor Carsten Rahbek

The Danish wolf

We study how and why the wolf population is growing and spreading across Europe. Based on this knowledge and data on population and occurrences, we make models to predict wolf dispersal and the number of wolves we can expect in each part of Europe, including Denmark.

Contact

Professor Carsten Rahbek

Conserving biodiversity in Danish forests (FINISHED)

This project sheds light on what forest areas in Denmark should be given priority in a cost-effective effort for the conservation of biodiversity in the Danish forests. It also examines what such efforts will cost, and what it may mean for the provision of other ecosystem services from the forests.

Download the final report

Contact

Professor Carsten Rahbek
Special Consultant Anders Højgård Petersen

Citizen science projects

Citizen Science is scientific research conducted, completely or in part, by citizens without prior training or expert skills. The citizen science projects involving CMEC are described below.

Use of citizen science data

We seek to explore the potential of data collected by citizens.

Contact

Professor Carsten Rahbek

The Anthunt (Myrejagten)

We investigate the ant's favorite food in Denmark. We compare this information with ants in the rest of the world. This way, we obtain a better understanding of the impact of environmental and climatic changes.

Read more about The Anthunt (in Danish)

Contact

Associate Professor Anders P. Tøttrup

Biodiversitet.nu (NaturTjek)

We work to develop a set of biodiversity indicators to track changes in biodiversity over time across Denmark. Data are being collected by citizens without prior training or expert skills. We run yearly evaluations and finally an overall assessment by 2020.

Read more about Biodiversitet.nu (in Danish)

Contact

Professor Carsten Rahbek
Associate Professor Anders P. Tøttrup

Danish Fungi Atlas (Dansk Svampeatlas)

The project builds upon the atlas project Danmarks Svampeatlas through which Danish fungi species, focusing on basidiomycetes, have been mapped over the course of a five-year period from 2009 to 2013.

Contact

Associate Professor Jacob Heilmann-Clausen

The Insectmobile (Insektmobilen)

We investigate the biodiversity of flying insects in Denmark. During the summer of 2018 and 2019, more than 150 volunteers were collecting insects using large special designed insect nets fitted to car rooftops.

Read more about The Insectmobile (in Danish)

Contact

Associate Professor Anders P. Tøttrup

REAL SCIENCE

The REAL SCIENCE project allows high school students to become creators of scientific knowledge in close collaboration with real scientists. The students themselves collect water samples and field notes from their local lake. Subsequently, they analyze the samples to identify species of fish and amphibians using DNA clues. The scientific purpose of the project is to understand species communities on a national scale and effects of non-biological (e.g. lake temperature and physical environment) that influence species composition.

Read more about REAL SCIENCE (in Danish)

Contact

Associate Professor Anders P. Tøttrup
Professor Carsten Rahbek

Explore the Ocean 2.0 (Opdag Havet 2.0)

Explore the Ocean is an educational project by which we, in collaboration with WWF (Verdensnaturfonden), ask volunteer divers to collect biological knowledge about the sea and marine life in Danish waters. Among other things, we want to compare the results to findings done by professional divers and thereby determine if volunteers can be responsible for some of the marine monitoring in Denmark.

Read more about Explore the Ocean 2.0 (in Danish)