Mia Jessen

Mia Jessen is a Research Fellow at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ and German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) since November 2022, where she contributes to the Physiological Diversity Team within the Ecosystems of the Future research program. Her academic journey includes PhD completion at UFZ/iDiv in 2021 with thesis on 'Interactions among herbivory, nutrient enrichment and climate change as drivers of plant traits, performance and community diversity,' supervised by Anu Eskelinen with co-supervision from Harald Auge, Stan Harpole, and Yann Hautier.

Dr. Jessen specializes in plant ecology with focus on global change drivers' impacts on plant community composition and diversity. Her research investigates experimental grasslands subjected to nutrient enrichment and loss of large mammalian herbivores, with current work examining cascading effects of fertilization on below-ground disturbance by small mammalian herbivores and links to above-ground plant diversity. Her methodological approach combines field experiments with data analysis across multiple ecosystems including grasslands and boreal forests.

Analysis of her publication record reveals consistent exploration of nutrient-herbivory-climate interactions across ecosystems. Her work demonstrates how these factors influence plant recruitment through mechanisms like litter accumulation and light competition rather than direct resource limitation. A significant pattern across her research is the examination of both above-ground and below-ground processes in understanding community dynamics under global change.

Dr. Jessen has contributed to high-impact publications including a 2022 Nature paper on light competition mechanisms in plant diversity loss and multiple studies in Journal of Ecology and Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. Her collaborative work spans international research networks including NutNet, demonstrating global relevance of her ecological investigations into biodiversity responses to environmental change.