Jana Blechschmidt

Project: Biodiversity distribution and dynamics of terrestrial plants in Bavaria and their response to climate and land use change

In my research, I use mechanistic niche models to assess the response of plant biodiversity to environmental change in Bavaria. By exploring the complex correlations between environmental change and plant diversity, I hope to contribute to the theoretical understanding of range dynamics of plant species and to provide specific guidance to conservation authorities.

The project is part of the interdisciplinary research consortium “BLIZ”, a Bayklif  funded project that investigates how society, land use, ecosystem services and biodiversity interact in Bavaria under the influence of climate change until 2100. Within BLIZ, my project entails close collaboration with partners in the University of Regensburg (Prof. Dr. Florian Hartig).

• 2020 - now: PhD student
  Ecosystem Modeling, Center for Computational and Theoretical Biology (CCTB), University of Würzburg, Germany
   
• 2020-2020: Research assistant
  Theoretical Biology Group, University of Bielefeld, Germany

• 2017-2020: Master of Behaviour: From Neural Mechanisms to Evolution
  University of Bielefeld, Germany
  Thesis: "Climate Change and Green Sea Turtle Sex Ratio: Preventing Possible Extinction"

• 2013-2016 Bachelor of Biology
  University of Bielefeld, Germany
  Thesis: "Ich kann dich gut riechen: gibt es ein chemisches Signal für Freundschaft?"

Blechschmidt, J., Cabral, J. S. (2025). "MetaRange.jl: a dynamic and metabolic species range model for plant species". Ecology and Evolution, 15: e70773. doi: 10.1002/ece3.70773

Cabral, J. S., Mendoza-Ponce, A., da Silva, A. P., Oberpriller, J., Mimet, A., Kieslinger, J., Berger, T., Blechschmidt, J., Brönner, M., Classen, A., Fallert, S., Hartig, F., Hof, C., Hoffmann, M., Knoke, T., Krause, A., Lewerentz, A., Pohle, P., Raeder, U. . . . Zurell, D. (2023). "The road to integrate climate change projections with regional land-use–biodiversity models". People and Nature, 00, 1–26. doi: 10.1002/pan3.10472

Buhl, Tobias; Marcomin, David; Fallert, Stefan; Blechschmidt, Jana; Bönisch, Franziska; Mark, Robert; Cabral, Juliano Sarmento; Mammen, Sebastian von. (2023). "User-Centered Engineering of an Interactive Land Use Exploration Tool". Workshop on Visualisation in Environmental Sciences (EnvirVis), Leipzig, Germany 2023, doi: 10.2312/envirvis.20231109

Blechschmidt, Jana; Wittmann, Meike J.; Blüml, Chantal (2020). "Climate Change and Green Sea Turtle Sex Ratio — Preventing Possible Extinction". Genes, vol. 11, doi: 10.3390/genes11050588