Team

Professor: Prof. Dr. Michael Staab

Research Assistants: Simon Heitzler, Julian Lunow, Joshua Spitz, Brigitte Streanga

Technical and Administrative Staff: Tanja M. Müller, Kerstin Strauß

I am a zoologist and (animal) ecologist with a special interest in biodiversity research and insects. Originally, I have mostly focused on tropical ants, while in the last years I address questions related to community ecology and trophic interaction networks from a biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) perspective. Questions of global environmental change, especially microclimate, also increasingly play a large role in my work. Nevertheless, as long as animals are involved, I am fascinated by and engaged in many topics, from taxonomy and systematics, to host-parasitoid interactions, to (phylo)genetic diversity, among others.

https://www.leuphana.de/en/institutes/institute-of-ecology/team/michael-staab.html

Selected key publications

Staab M, Blüthgen N, Wehner K, Schall P, Ammer C (2026) Advancing the quantification of land-use intensity in forests: the ForMIX index combining tree species composition, tree removal, deadwood availability, and stand maturity. European Journal of Forest Research 145: 6.

Blüthgen N, Staab M (2024) A critical evaluation of network approaches for studying species interactions. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 55: 65–88.

Staab M, Pietsch S, Yan H, Blüthgen N, Chen A, Li Y, Zhang N, Ma K, Liu X (2023) Dear neighbor: trees with extrafloral nectaries facilitate defense and growth of adjacent undefended trees. Ecology 104: e4057.

Staab M, Gossner MM, Simons NK, Achury R, Ambarlı D, Bae S, Schall P, Weisser WW, Blüthgen N (2023) Insect decline in forests depends on species’ traits and may be mitigated by management. Communications Biology 6: 338.

Fornoff F, Klein AM, Blüthgen N, Staab M (2019) Tree diversity increases robustness of multi-trophic interactions. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286: 20182399.

Staab M, Pufal G, Tscharntke T, Klein AM (2018) Trap nests for bees and wasps to analyze trophic interactions in changing environments – a systematic overview and user guide. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 9: 2226–2239.

I am an ecologist working on insects and their role in ecosystems. A focus of my previous research was on radio telemetry in butterflies and the question of how suitable this method is for this group. In particular, I investigated how telemetry transmitters affect flight performance and behaviour.

In my current work within the Arthropods Core Project at the Biodiversity Exploratories, I work on arthropod communities at larger spatial and temporal scales, using long-term data on diversity, abundance, and ecosystem functioning. My research aims to better understand the combined impact of climate and land use on arthropod-mediated processes.

I am interested in ecological relationships in semi-natural habitats like forests and grasslands. My main focus is on the effects of land use change on communities of different organisms and the effect of these changes on ecosystem functions. Specifically, I am working on the diversity and ecology of insects (especially beetles) and the functions they provide.

https://www.leuphana.de/en/institutes/institute-of-ecology/team/julian-lunow.html

My DFG-funded PhD research at MultiTroph, supervised by Prof. Dr. Michael Staab and Prof. Dr. Heike Feldhaar, centers on diversity and ecological functions of ants within a tree diversity experiment at BEF-China. In my research, I am investigating how tree diversity, mediated by ant community, may influence ecosystem functioning. Thereby I am using integrated taxonomic and functional information to explain the impact of shifts in ant community.

https://www.leuphana.de/en/institutes/institute-of-ecology/team/joshua-spitz.html

I am an ecologist with a deep passion for grassland ecosystems and a strong background in entomological and floristic taxonomy of dry to semi-dry grasslands. My earlier work took me from the calcareous grasslands on former military training areas in the Hainich National Park, Germany, to the abandoned sub-Pannonian forest-steppe mosaics of the Vértes Hills in Hungary, where I studied the effects of ecosystem engineering by wild ungulates on insects. 

Now, as part of my PhD research within LUMI, a contributing project of the Biodiversity Exploratories, I am exploring how land-use intensity shapes microclimatic niche space in grasslands and what this means for insect diversity, focusing on insect community sampling, the characterisation of species-specific microclimatic niches, and the measurement of critical thermal maxima (CT_max). 

Outside of work, I have a long-standing fascination with robber flies (Asilidae) that keeps drawing me back into the field.