Max Schuchardt
Research AssociateAt Disturbance Ecology until 06/2023
e-Mail: max.schuchardt(at)uni-bayreuth.de
I'm a PhD student in the department of Disturbance Ecology.
Here I had the chance to work along various projects from Peru to the German Alps.
In Peru I was working on El Niño driven vegetation dynamics along an aridtiy gradient from the hyper arid Sechura desert to the dryforest in pre Andean foothills. We discovered, that landuse management and socio economic developments in the region are most likely a major driver of vegetation dynamics which was interesting but also challenging since the dataset was first collected prior Super El Niño 1998 when the focus of potential drivers of dynamics was mainly on fluctuating resources due to ENSO...
After my Master thesis I continued my student helper work in the SusAlps project as a PhD student. In 2019 I collected weekly data on flowering phenology along a climati gradient (temperature and precipitation) from the German Alps downslope all the way to Bayreuth.
Besides this "personal" interest I worked along with other project partners on landuse intensity, biodiversity patterns etc within the SusAlps project (several publications already published and more to come).
In 2020 we collected final data in a reciprocal translocation experiment, also within the framework of SusAlps. Thats what I'm currently working on what's super motivating. Looking into different community turnover mechanisms and stability patterns is of high importance for future climate change scenarios (fingers crossed for that paper to be sent out ASAP). :-)
Moreover I'm active in globally coordinated Experiments like DragNet, Nutnet or DroughtNet which all explore the impact of global change drivers on our semi-natural grassland communities.
Besides teaching, fieldwork and manuscripting, I'm putting great effort in the maintenance of our experimental sites (SusAlps, NutNet, DroughtNet, NPKDNet, Event2) in the botanical garden of Bayreuth and the German Alps.
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