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About Pil Pedersen

Ph.d. Student in the Aura-project

Research interest:
Rewilding, nature management, ecosystem restoration, grazing ecology, species distribution modeling, animal physiology, biogeography, geospatial environmental modeling

PhD project (part of AURA): "Ecological opportunities and consequences of a new approach towards nature management based on re-establishment of diverse wild megafauna (rewilding)"
My phd project largely focuses on the grazing by big wild herbivores (such as European bison, red deer, wild horses) as recent research suggest that megafauna has a disproportionate large impact on the ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. I´m studying the effects of megafauna on the habitat and investigate how megafauna use their habitat.  This project involves both modeling of animal distribution, vegetational field work, GPS data analysis and collaboration with local nature management. In short my main research interests are nature management, rewilding, ecology and geospatial environmental modeling.

Explanation of the term Rewilding:
Rewiding is a relatively new approach to ecosystem restoration focusing on restoring the missing ecological functions such as grazing, predation, dung, seed dispersal etc by reintroducing species (e.g. locally extinct species or megafauna).

Role in AURA:                       
I´m a phd student on Bioscience, Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, affiliated in AURA as I´m working on rewilding, which relates well with the focus of the AURA project on unintended antropogenic effects on nature; such as mining, domestication, farming, hunting etc.

Education:
2012, Nov.-present: PhD student at the Ecoinformatics and Biovdiversity group, Bioscience, Aarhus University

2011, November: M.Sc. in Biology, Animal Physiology, Institute of Bioscience, Department of Animal Physiology, Aarhus University (60 ECTS)

Phone:+4528581385

Email: pil.birkefeldt@gmail.com