This event was canceled.

From the tropics to the poles, biodiversity is changing as a direct consequence of human activities such as land-use change, climate change and pollution. Against a backdrop of accelerating global change, two increasingly common, yet often unnoticed, socio-demographic processes are emerging as potential major forces in reshaping our planet. The rates of land abandonment have more than doubled in the last fifty years, with an area roughly half the size of Australia estimated to have been abandoned over the past half century. This large-scale abandonment is often paralleled with rural depopulation which in turn alters the structure of human society and threatens to erode cultural landscapes, erase traditions and decrease economic value of land and quality of life. My research spans biodiversity change following both well-known drivers like forest cover change but also less obvious ones like rural depopulation. During my talk, I’ll take us from the global scales to the local ones to share my findings of not just how biodiversity responds to human activities, but also of what happens to nature after people leave.

About Dr. Daskalova

Dr Gergana Daskalova is a global change ecologist with a focus on how humans are reshaping the natural world. Her research spans ecosystems around the world, from large-scale studies of land-use change, climate change and their impacts on biodiversity, to more detailed investigations of depopulating villages in Bulgaria. Her academic path has taken her from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland to the University of Queensland in Australia, back to Edinburgh and then also to Canada to work in the remote Arctic. Dr Daskalova is currently a Branco Weiss Fellow at the University of Göttingen. Through her fellowship research, she is putting the spotlight on lands and villages few know about, yet it is in those same depopulating places we might be able to find new ideas for protecting both nature and human livelihoods.

This event is part of AUBG's Distinguished Lecturers Series.