Contact details

e-mail: florian.dirk.schneider@gmail.com website: www.fdschneider.de

GitHub: fdschneider | Twitter: f_d_schneider
Researchgate: Florian_Schneider12

Akademic vita

May ‘18 – present: Researcher at ISOE Institute for Social-ecological Research in Frankfurt, Germany

  • Research on Biodiversity Valuation and Biodiversity in the Anthropocene
  • Dialogue workshops on insect decline in agricultural landscapes
  • Member of ISOE research group Biodiversity and People, associate of Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center (SBiK-F)

January ‘18 – present: Freelance biologist working as scientific advisor, writer, programmer, lecturer

  • Development of exchange format for ecological trait data; Development of software tools (for BExIS, University Jena)
  • Advisor on ecosystem services and biodiversity, science-policy and transdisciplinary communication
  • Teaching in computational science anf advanced visualisation using R statistical software

December ‘17 – July ‘18: Research associate at Technische Universität Darmstadt, Institute of Linguistics and Literary Studies, Prof. Dr. Nina Janich. Project “Bye, bye, Biene!” (DFG #389692661)

  • Scientific advisor

December ‘15 – November ‘17: Scientific secretary of the DFG Senate Commission for Biodiversity Research , PostDoc position at Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate - Research Center (BiK-F), Frankfurt

  • Coordinating strategic committee of DFG; Communication with DFG officers and members of the commission, secretaries of the DFG senate commissions and other initiatives of biodiversity research in Germany; assisting the chair of the senate commission, Prof. Dr. Markus Fischer.
  • Associated to biodiversity synthesis research within the core synthesis project of the Biodiversity Exploratories.

February ‘13 – August ‘15: PostDoc at Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution (ISEM), Université Montpellier, CNRS, IRD, France, at the BioDICée Lab with Dr. Sonia Kéfi

  • Developping models of effects of livestock grazing on spatial structure and resiliene of vegetation cover in an EU-funded, interdisciplinary project on Catastrophic Shifts in Drylands (CASCADE).
  • Co-supervision of research (Master-theses and PhD thesis on spatial models of vegetation structure)

March ‘09 – November ‘12: PhD thesis at Technische Universität Darmstadt (GER), group of Dr. Ulrich Brose (Ecological Networks).

  • passed with ‘distinction’ (date: 30.11.2012)
  • Thesis: ‘Predator diversity and ecosystem functioning: An allometric approach’
  • Funded by a PhD-fellowship of Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt

October ‘02 – January ‘09: Diploma in Biology at Technische Universität Darmstadt (GER)

  • passed with result ‘very good’
  • Diploma thesis: ‘Effects of predator diversity and intra-guild predation on ecosystem function’
  • Main subjects: Ecology, Environmental Science, and Botany

Other work experience

\emph{August ‘15 – October ‘15:} Scientific Assistant at Technische Universität Darmstadt, for the ‘EcoNetworks’ lab of Prof. Dr. Nico Blüthgen.

  • Coaching in quantitative statistics, computational methods and programming in R

\emph{December ‘07 – December ‘08:} Assistant Coordinator at Center for Interdisciplinary Study Programs at Technische Universität Darmstadt, for the study program ‘Umweltwissenschaften’ (Environmental Science).

  • Coordination of interdisciplinary seminars; Tutoring
  • Promotion of the study program via print media and websites

Grants

2012 two-year PostDoc fellowship by DAAD, for a project entitled ‘Disentangling identity effects in consumer communities: an integrative approach on synthetic composition experiments’ at University of Zürich with Owen Petchey (I declined in favour of the position in Montpellier, France)

2009 three-year PhD fellowship, Promotionsstipendium by Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (www.DBU.de; AZ 20008/995)

Teaching experience

  • Summer 2019 & 2020 Seminar ‘Biodiversität und Gesellschaft’ at Technische Universität Darmstadt, within the interdisciplinary study programmes
  • Mach 2018 Workshop on ‘Statistical plotting and data handling in R’ for Biodiversity Exploratories Project (Frankfurt) (20 participants)
  • June 2016 Workshop with Diana Bowler on ‘Code sharing: Version control with git and GitHub’ at BiK-F (Frankfurt) (20 participants)
  • September 2015 Workshop on ‘Advanced R programming’ at Technische Universität Darmstadt (5 participants)
  • June 2015 Workshop on ‘R basics’ at Technische Universität Darmstadt (12 participants)
  • December 2014 Workshop on ‘Computational science: version control with git’ at ISEM (Université Montpellier, CNRS, IRD) (10 participants)
  • July 2009 Experimentalpraktikum ‘Populationsökologie’ at Technische Universität Darmstadt (15 students)
  • June 2009 Ecological field excursions in practical module of the interdisciplinary study program ‘Environmental Sciences’ at Technische Universität Darmstadt. (24 participants)
  • December 2007 to August 2008 Tutor in interdisciplinary student courses (project manager and ecology expert), within the interdisciplinary study programme ‘Environmental Sciences’ (CISP), Technische Universität Darmstadt. (30 participants)

Collaborations

  • Diversity of Insects in Nature protected Areas (DINA), a project that aims at analysing insect biodiversity in 21 selected German nature reserves, in correlation with important environmental variables, identifying possible causes of its decline, exploring potentials of stakeholder participation for integrated, cross-sectoral decision-making and providing evidence-based policy recommendations for more effective biodiversity preservation.
  • Ecological Trait-data Standard, a standard terminology for trait-data. Collaborators: Caterina Penone (Uni Bern), Nadja Simons (TU Darmstadt), Andreas Ostrowski & Birgitta König-Ries (Uni Jena), Malte Jochum (iDiv), Pete Manning & Gaetane LeProvost (Senckenberg BiK-F), Martin Gossner (WSL Birmersdorf, Switzerland)
  • Bye, bye, Biene, contextual discourse analysis of conflict-ladden environmental topics. Collaborators: Nina Janich and Niklas Simon (TU Darmstadt)
  • Open Traits Network on development of tools and vocabularies for the handling of distributed, open-access trait-data. Main collaborators: Brian Enquist, Rachael Galagher and Brian Maitner (University of Arizona), Joshua Madin (University of Hawaii Manoa), Will Pearse (Utah State university), Jens Kattge (University of Jena) and others
  • Evolution of Plant Trait Syndromes in the Mediterranean Climate, modelling study. Collaborators: Sonia Kéfi (CNRS Montpellier), Marina Rillo (The Natural History Museum, London)
  • Biodiversity Exploratories, core synthesis project. within DFG funded priority programme – Main Collaborators: Pete Manning (Senckenberg BiK-F, Frankfurt), Eric Allan (University of Bern), Nico Blüthgen (TU Darmstadt), Martin Gossner (WSL Birmersdorf, Switzerland), Nadja Simons (TU Munich), Runa Boeddinghaus and Ellen Kandeler (University Hohenheim), Thomas Nauss (Uni Marburg) <!—
  • Informal collaboration on epistemology of biodiversity research
    at Biodicée lab at Institut des Sciences d’Evolution Montpellier (ISEM) – Collaborators: Sonia Kéfi, Vasilis Dakos, Vincent Devictor (CNRS Montpellier) Informal collaboration on prediction of interaction strength from body-size with iDiv – Collaborators: Ulrich Brose, Björn Rall and Alison Feldmann-Iles (iDiv) –>

finalized collaborations:

  • Indicators of regime shifts in ecological systems with spatially heterogeneous stressors. Funded by IFCAM – Main collaborators collaboration with Sonia Kéfi (CNRS Montpellier), Vishwesha Guttal (Indian Institute of Science Bangalore)
  • CASCADE Project on Catastrophic shifts in drylands. EU FP7 funded consortium. Workpackage 6 - Improve realism of dryland models – Main Collaborators: Sonia Kéfi (CNRS Montpellier), Max Rietkerk and Mara Baudena (Utrecht University), Peter de Ruiter (University of Amsterdam), Susanna Bautista (University of Alicante), Workpackage 8 - Scenario analyses of upscaling preventive and restorative measures – Main Collaborators: Luuk Fleskens and Diana Sietz (University of Wageningen)

Other academic activities

I have been acting as reviewer for the following journals: Ecology Letters, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Journal of Animal Ecology, Ecosphere, Acta Oecologica

I am a member of the Gesellschaft für Ökologie (GfÖ) and the British Ecological Society (BES).