about me
I am a researcher working at the intersection of theoretical and empirical ecology. My work is driven by fundamental ecological questions, such as how biodiversity emerges and persists and how plants and animals are interconnected across the planet. I believe that uncovering these fundamental laws of nature is essential for understanding past, present, and future ecological dynamics and for fostering sustainable ecosystems.
research projects
My current research projects focus on understanding the effects of climate change and light pollution on animal movement and its cascading effects on species interactions and community dynamics.
animal movement
How does animal movement respond to the environment and how can we predict large-scale patterns from this fundamental process?
light pollution
How do the effects of light pollution on physiology and behaviour drive community patterns and dynamics?
ecological forecasting
How can we up-scale from processes to ecosystems to mechanistically forecast community dynamics under global change?
collaborations
movement across scales
PI of synthesis working group sMars. Researchers from around the world come together to explore the implications of movement across scales.
light pollution in complex ecological systems
Editor of theme issue in Phil. Trans. B. Researchers worldwide compile their expertise on the impacts of light pollution on complex ecological systems.
supervisions
current
Caitlin Wilkinson
PhD student
Animal dispersal, island biogeography
past
Jördis F. Terlau
PhD student
Animal movement under global change : How will terrestrial invertebrates perform in a warming world?
Alexander Dyer
PhD student
Towards a mechanistic understanding of animal movement : some influences of light and temperature.
Ana Carolina Antunes
PhD student
Anthropogenic actions shape biodiversity change and ecosystem functioning.
Lea Mareen Uhde
Bachelor student
Effects of warming on persistence in complex food webs.
Anna Sophie Krug
Bachelor student
How does skyglow affect movement and predation in an invertebrate community?
selected publications
Hirt, M. R., Evans, D. M., Miller, C. R., & Ryser, R. (2023). Light pollution in complex ecological systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 378(1892), 20220351. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0351
Dyer, A., Ryser, R., Brose, U., Amyntas, A., Bodnar, N., Boy, T., Franziska Bucher, S., Cesarz, S., Eisenhauer, N., Gebler, A., Hines, J., Kyba, C. C. M., Menz, M. H. M., Rackwitz, K., Shatwell, T., Terlau, J. F., & Hirt, M. R. (2023). Insect communities under skyglow: Diffuse night-time illuminance induces spatio-temporal shifts in movement and predation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 378(1892), 20220359. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0359
Terlau, J. F., Brose, U., Eisenhauer, N., Amyntas, A., Boy, T., Dyer, A., Gebler, A., Hof, C., Liu, T., Scherber, C., Schlägel, U. E., Schmidt, A., & Hirt, M. R. (2023). Microhabitat conditions remedy heat stress effects on insect activity. Global Change Biology, 29(13), 3747–3758. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16712
Hirt, M. R., Barnes, A. D., Gentile, A., Pollock, L. J., Rosenbaum, B., Thuiller, W., Tucker, M. A., & Brose, U. (2021). Environmental and anthropogenic constraints on animal space use drive extinction risk worldwide. Ecology Letters, 24(12), 2576–2585. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13872
Hirt, M. R., Grimm, V., Li, Y., Rall, B. C., Rosenbaum, B., & Brose, U. (2018). Bridging Scales: Allometric Random Walks Link Movement and Biodiversity Research. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 33(9), 701–712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.07.003
Hirt, M. R., Lauermann, T., Brose, U., Noldus, L. P. J. J., & Dell, A. I. (2017). The little things that run: A general scaling of invertebrate exploratory speed with body mass. Ecology, 98(11), 2751–2757. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2006
Full publication list