CIRSS Seminar: Tina Heger

Special guest Dr Tina Heger of the University of Postdam and the Technical University of Munich will lead a session on "The Hierarchy-of-Hypotheses (HoH) Approach & Co. - Advancing invasion biology with novel integrative methods and through collaborations with computer sciences."

Invasion biology addresses why some species spread outside of their native ranges, why they are often so successful in their new range, and which measures can be taken to safeguard native biodiversity from negative consequences of invasions. It is a rich, lively and complex research field, and keeping track of research results is challenging. The hierarchy-of-hypotheses (HoH) approach has been introduced as a tool for synthesis in this field. Its basic conception is that complexity in many cases can be mastered by structuring the topic under study in a hierarchical way. It has been applied to assess and summarize results of > 1,000 scientific papers on twelve major invasion hypotheses in invasion biology. The results are visualized at https://hi-knowledge.org/invasion-biology/. Future projects are planned that aim at enhancing this tool towards an evolving knowledge resource, where researchers can get an overview of main research questions in the field, and then ‘zoom in’ to find linked hypotheses and discover related papers and data.

Dr. Tina Heger studied biology in Frankfurt and Hamburg. In her PhD at the Technical University of Munich, Germany she focused on the mechanisms of plant invasions. Afterwards, she spent one year at the University of California, Davis, to study the evolutionary ecology of an annual invasive plant. Currently, she is working in a collaborative research project at University of Potsdam, where her focus is on the ecology of novel ecosystems.

Password: 438823

Questions? Contact Janet Eke