CASUS Institute Seminar, Prof. Miguel Lurgi, School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics, University of Swansea, United Kingdom

Abstract of the talk// Quantifying general patterns of community structure, and the mechanisms behind them, is key to understand the persistence and collapse of complex ecological communities. To achieve this, we should develop holistic approaches that not only consider species composition but also ecological interactions between them. Miguel tackles this challenge by unveiling empirical patterns of species interactions networks alongside theoretical approaches that enable a better understanding of their assembly and disassembly.

In his talk, he will present empirical and theoretical examples of this research porgram applied to microbial marine and terrestrial vertebrate systems. On the microbial side, he explores the relation between biofilm microbial network structure and the successful settlement of coral larvae. This work is complemented with a mechanistic theoretical approach to microbial community dynamics in the host-associated microbiome to investigate the emergence of host types in marine sponges.

Focusing on terrestrial avian communities, Miguel and his team assess the beneficial effects of protected areas on food web structure and relate these changes to considerations of biomass flow across the ecosystem. Effects of anthropogenic perturbations on food webs thus discovered has inspired to develop theoretical explorations of the spatial spread of disturbance across complex food webs. Insights from this mechanistic understanding allows making predictions on the effects of anthropogenic disturbances on the fate of spatially extended complex ecosystems.

Miguel is in Görlitz and will present his work in the seminar room of the CASUS site Conrad-Schiedt-Straße 20.