2026-06-29

Introduction

  • Grew up surrounded by nature and farming in Patagonia
  • Field Work Ecologist -> Work with stakeholders -> Landscape modeling -> Data Science
  • Focus on transdisciplinarity

From the field to data science

Why I’m here

  • The Biodiversity Section needs someone who can turn community data (plants, invertebrates, eDNA, sensors) into decision-relevant evidence
  • My work already sits at exactly that interface: NOVANA → models → spatial prioritisation → advisory output
  • I want to extend this from “where to protect” to “where AND how to restore,” linking biodiversity with ecosystem processes (Terrestrial Ecology)

Part 1: How I think about the problem

Bridging the gap between conservation and action

The grand challenge in modern conservation is bridging the gap between observation and action.

One analytical pipeline, three stages

The Ecoscience Opportunity: Building a cohesive research program across section boundaries

What I bring to each stage

  • Monitoring → models: reproducible pipelines that harmonise messy, heterogeneous datasets (NOVANA-type structure) into model-ready data
  • Models → prioritisation: species distribution models, joint SDMs, ecological networks, spatial optimisation
  • Prioritisation → advice: I’ve done this end-to-end for Denmark’s 30x30 assessment (terrestrial + marine), feeding directly into Biodiversity Council reports

Part 2: What this looks like in practice

From point data to a usable evidence layer

  • This is the kind of leaflet output I build directly into analysis reports and dashboards for collaborators and policy partners
  • Same approach applies to plant, invertebrate, or eDNA community data
  • Layer toggles + basemap choice let a non-specialist explore the evidence themselves

Illustrative coordinates around Aarhus – real version uses NOVANA/BioWIDE plot data, as in my Mols Bjerge rewilding monitoring work.

Trade-offs are a slider, not a single map

\(\begin{align*} \text{Maximize} & = \text{Biodiversity} + \text{Resilience} + \text{Human dimension}\end{align*}\)

  • Biodiversity
    • Community composition and rarity
    • Phylogenetic Diversity
    • Functional diversity
  • Resilience
    • Contiguity (Area)
    • Ecosystem Functioning and Global Change Vulnerability
    • Network stability (Trophic and/or mutualistic)
    • Stochastic components
  • Human dimension
    • Food and resource security (Eg. Renewable energy, water)
    • Minimize conflict

Example Landuse (Global contribution)

\(\begin{align*} \text{Maximize} & = \text{Biodiversity} + \text{Resilience} \cdot \text{bonus}\end{align*}\)

  • Trade-off

Community structure as a network

  • Plant-pollinator and other interaction data are naturally network data
  • This is the same engine behind NetworkExtinction (CRAN package I co-developed)
  • Directly relevant to linking Biodiversity with Terrestrial Ecology’s plant-insect interaction work

Potential extinction cascades in a desert ecosystem: Linking food web interactions to community viability. Ecology and Evolution, 14(2), e10930.

Part 3: Research vision for Ecoscience

Three directions

  1. Community-level monitoring → models: extend current vertebrate/vegetation-focused workflows to plant and invertebrate community data, including eDNA and sensor streams, in direct collaboration with Terrestrial Ecology
  2. Process-aware prioritisation: move spatial optimisation beyond occurrence/representation toward ecological networks, species interactions, and ecosystem resilience
  3. Reproducible advisory infrastructure: open, auditable pipelines so Ecoscience’s policy outputs (30x30, Nature Restoration Law) are transparent and updatable as new monitoring data arrives

Funding strategy

I know this is a gap in my profile so far – mostly contributor roles, not PI on major grants. Concrete plan for year 1-2:

  • Villum and Novo Nordisk Foundation – restoration-carbon-biodiversity trade-off tool, building on the existing Danish 30x30 pipeline
  • Independent Research Fund Denmark (Sapere Aude) – integrating species interaction networks into prioritisation
  • Horizon Europe / Biodiversa+ – joint proposal leveraging Ecoscience’s monitoring infrastructure and my Chile/US network

I’d actively seek a co-PI structure for the first application – pairing my analytical background with a senior PI’s grant-leadership experience.

Research Roadmap: First 24 Months

Thank you!

Addressing the assessment directly

  • Funding track record → concrete near-term targets above, with a co-PI strategy for the first cycle
  • Research leadership → I’ve led delivery of national-scale, reproducible analytical products end-to-end (30x30 terrestrial + marine workflows); I’d like to grow this into leading a small project team
  • Outreach → open to building this here: dashboards and interactive tools are a natural outreach product I already enjoy making
  • Project management → the SustainScapes work has involved coordinating deliverables across institutions and timelines; happy to formalise this further
  • Collaboration, concretely → Camilla Fløjgaard’s section on extending 30x30/restoration work to plant and invertebrate objectives; Terrestrial Ecology on plant-insect interactions as a bridge to community resilience metrics; continued Chile/US ties as a source of comparative datasets

Questions

A place where quantitative work is a first-class contribution to conservation science, with colleagues to co-develop process-based prioritisation tools – that’s what I’m looking for here.

Thank you – happy to go deeper into any of the demos, the funding plan, or the modelling details.