Ineta Kacergyté

As a landscape ecologist and conservation biologist, my research explores how wetland restoration and creation shape ecological communities—particularly focusing on birds, but also encompassing fish, amphibians, and arthropods. I’m especially interested in how these dynamic habitats influence biodiversity patterns, species interactions, and ecosystem resilience.

Rooted in conservation biology, community ecology, and biodiversity science, my work also intersects with evolutionary ecology and animal behaviour. This interdisciplinary perspective allows me to examine not only how species respond to restored landscapes in the short term, but also how ecological and evolutionary processes unfold over time in human-modified environments. Ultimately, my goal is to inform more effective conservation strategies by understanding how restoration can support thriving, diverse, and functionally rich ecosystems.

Ineta Kačergytė (Name pronunciation)

My research aims to identify the most important factors for increasing and maintaining bird diversity when restoring and creating wetlands. These factors may include wetland size or landscape setting, for example. Most of my research focuses on wetland creation. I study created wetlands in Uppland, examining which environmental variables in the created habitat are related to bird, fish and amphibian diversity. More specifically, I examine what influences the bird community in created wetlands, including their abundance, richness and reproductive success, and I relate these factors to fish and amphibian communities. Bird data were collected using field observation, while fish and amphibian occurrences were determined using environmental DNA metabarcoding sampling. I also attempt to relate species interactions to intervention outcomes. Possible interactions include conspecific and heterospecific attraction, predation and competition.

In other projects, I am evaluating wetland restorations for birds. Here, we are trying to narrow down the scale of wetland restoration in Sweden and quantify species-specific responses. Although the dataset is rather heterogeneous, we need to employ more creative data analysis tools to standardise the results.

Currently, I am conducting postdoctoral research, in which I will continue to investigate similar questions in the context of wetland multifunctionality.

I am currently happy to be part of two courses related to urban ecology: one at undergraduate level and one at postgraduate level.

Courses I am part of: 

• Studio - Urban ecology for landscape architecture
• Urbanekologi och växtkännedom

I am also involved in supervising graduate and undergraduate projects.

Project partner in the Biodiversa+ project 'Scenarios for Protecting European Avian Redistributions' aka SPEAR.

I finished my PhD in 2021, writing my thesis on wetland creation and restoration for biodiversity "Outcomes of conservation initiatives benefit birds, amphibians and, occasionally, fish". In contrast, my Master's thesis at Lund University examined the impact of urbanisation on the cognitive abilities of great tits. As a bird enthusiast, I have worked on a project involving northern wheatears and nest box populations of tits, and I am continually involved in standardised bird ringing.

Gould, E., Fraser, H.S., Parker, T.H., Nakagawa, S., Griffith, S.C., Vesk, P.A., Fidler, F., Hamilton, D.G., Abbey-Lee, R.N., Abbott, J.K. and Aguirre, L.A., ... Kačergytė, I. ... & Lagisz, M. 2025. Same data, different analysts: variation in effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and evolutionary biology. BMC biology, 23(1), p.35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-024-02101-x

Noble, D.W., Xirocostas, Z.A., Wu, N.C., Martinig, A.R., Almeida, R.A., Bairos-Novak, K.R., Balti, H., ... Kačergytė, I., ... & Lagisz, M. 2025. The promise of community-driven preprints in ecology and evolution. Proceedings B, 292(2039), p.20241487. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.1487

Auffret, A.G., Ladouceur, E., Haussmann, N.S., Daouti, E., Elumeeva, T.G., Kačergytė, I., Knape, J., Kotowska, D., Low, M., Onipchenko, V.G. and Paquet, M., 2024. A global database of soil seed bank richness, density, and abundance. Ecology, 105(11). https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4438

Vincze, E., Kačergytė, I., Gaviraghi Mussoi, J., Urhan, U. and Brodin, A., 2024. Are comparable studies really comparable? Suggestions from a problem-solving experiment on urban and rural great tits. Animal Cognition, 27(1), p.47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-024-01885-3

Knape, J., Paquet, M., Arlt, A., Kačergytė, I., Pärt, T. 2023. Partitioning variance in population growth for models with environmental and demographic stochasticity. Journal of Animal Ecology, 92, 1979–1991. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13990

Kačergytė, I., Knape, J.,  Żmihorski, M. Arlt, D., and  Pärt, T. 2023.
Community associations of birds with amphibians and fish in wetlands created for biodiversity. Biological Conservation, 282, 110031. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110031

Hambäck, P. A., Dawson, L., Geranmayeh, P., Jarsjö, J., Kačergytė, I., Peacock, M., ... & Blicharska, M. 2022. Tradeoffs and synergies in wetland multifunctionality: A scaling issue. Science of the Total Environment, 160746. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160746

Elofsson, K., Hiron, M., Kačergytė, I., & Pärt, T. 2023. Ecological compensation of stochastic wetland biodiversity: National or regional policy schemes? Ecological Economics, 204, 107672. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107672

Kačergytė, I., Pärt, T., Berg, Å., Arlt, D., Żmihorski, M., & Knape, J. 2022. Quantifying effects of wetland restorations on bird communities in agricultural landscapes. Biological Conservation, 273, 109676. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109676

Kačergytė, I., Petersson, E., Arlt, D., Hellström, M., Knape, J., Spens, J., Żmihorski, M. and Pärt, T., 2021. Environmental DNA metabarcoding elucidates patterns of fish colonisation and co‐occurrences with amphibians in temperate wetlands created for biodiversity. Freshwater Biology, 2021;00:1–15 https://doi.org/10.1111/fwb.13800

Kačergytė, I., Arlt, D., Berg, Å., Żmihorski, M., Knape, J., Rosin, Z. M., & Pärt, T. 2021. Evaluating created wetlands for bird diversity and reproductive success. Biological Conservation, Volume 257, 109084.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109084

Josefsson, J., Hiron, M., Arlt, D., Auffret, A.G., Berg, Å., Chevalier, M., Glimskär, A., Hartman, G., Kačergytė, I., Klein, J., Knape, J., et al. ... and Pärt, T. 2020. Improving scientific rigour in conservation evaluations and a plea deal for transparency on potential biases. Conservation Letters, p.e12726.  https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12726