Oliver Schweiger

Dr. Oliver Schweiger is a Working Group Leader at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, leading the Macroecology of Animal Communities within the Department of Community Ecology. His research is centered on biodiversity, global change, and pollinator ecology, with a focus on insects such as bees, hoverflies, and butterflies. He leads and participates in numerous large-scale research projects funded by the EU Horizon program and the Helmholtz Association.

His research interests span macroecology, community ecology, pollination biology, and ecosystem functioning. He investigates how environmental changes—especially climate change, land use, and chemical stressors—affect species assemblages, interactions, and ecosystem services. His work integrates population genetics, community dynamics, and cross-scale ecological modeling to understand biodiversity responses to global change.

The recent publications highlight a strong focus on pollinator decline, pesticide impacts, climate vulnerability, and network ecology. Trends show increasing use of large datasets, pan-European monitoring, and interdisciplinary approaches combining field ecology with molecular and modeling tools. His work often appears in top journals such as Nature, Global Ecology and Biogeography, and Science.

Dr. Schweiger has made significant contributions to major collaborative initiatives including STEP, SCALES, PoshBee, Safeguard, and current Horizon Europe projects like Agri4Pol, Butterfly, and WildPosh. These projects aim to assess, monitor, and mitigate threats to pollinators across Europe.

He advises on policy and conservation strategies, with an emphasis on sustainable agriculture and biodiversity protection. His work supports the development of monitoring tools and indicators for pollinator health and ecosystem resilience.

He is actively involved in building research infrastructure such as the EuPPollNet database and contributes to educational tools like the PRONAS software for biodiversity impacts of climate change.