Jan Plue

I am an expert plant and landscape ecologist passionate about plant biodiversity, trained by years of international research experience. My Bsc, Msc and PhD-degree in Bioscience Engineering at KULeuven (Belgium) ensure that I have an all-round, and versatile educational background show-casing an analytical and critical mind with a strong affinity to the natural world and its rapidly changing environment. I am driven by the challenges the latter entails to conserve and manage nature’s biodiversity and natural resources, as to ensure the sustainable ecosystem service delivery for future generations. I have devoted the past decade research at uncovering, modelling and understanding the ecological processes and associated trait and genetic mechanisms behind biogeographical patterns in plant diversity and plant communities across spatial and temporal scales and across levels of biotic organization from genes, population over species to communities, caused by human management and/or interaction with their physical and natural environment. I have developed a wide methodological skill set to actively address these issues using experimental, observational and genetic tools. I have pursued observational and experimental research across multiple spatial and temporal scales on global change, including eutrophication, land use changes, habitat fragmentation and climate change, each of which pose persistent threats to plant biodiversity and ecological processes underpinning ecosystem service provisioning.