Prof Axel Rossberg

Axel Rossberg
FHEA

Professor in Theoretical Ecology
Head of The Centre for Biodiversity and Sustainability

School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences
Queen Mary University of London
www.qmul.ac.uk/sbbs/staff/axelrossberg.html
Centre for Biodiversity and Sustainability
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Research

Theoretical Ecology, Biodiversity Patterns, Biodiversity Finance, Complex Systems

Interests

Ecology cannot be a science without a consistent theoretical underpinning of the concepts and ideas employed. Unfortunately, insufficient efforts are made to develop such a theoretical basis of ecology, perpetuating confusion. My research aims to overcome this barrier to progress in ecological research by (1) developing a "zoo" of different ecological models that can consistently be derived from each other, usually through appropriate approximations, (2) describing the solutions of these models, so often solving decades old ecological problems, and (3) verifying these solutions by comparison with the rich fundus of ecological observations in the literature. The resulting abstract but general understanding of ecology allows me to address high-level applied problems, such as in biodiversity finance, and led to our proposal for Biodiversity Impact Credits that can play a similar role for species conservation as carbon credits do for climate protection.



Interview conducted and presented by our former BSc student Jasmine Pilgir in 2023.