Florian Hartig

Theoretical ecologist and ecological data scientist
W3 Professor, University of Regensburg

About me

I am a theoretical ecologist and ecological data scientist. I currently act as head of the Theoretical Ecology Group and Deputy Dean of Research of the Faculty of Biology and Preclinical Medicine. A full list of my current roles is on my CV.

Research

With my research group, I study the mechanisms and principles underlying the patterns of biodiversity in ecology, evolution and conservation, using computer simulations, statistical methods and, more recently, algorithms from machine learning and artificial intelligence. A particular focus of our work is understanding the mechanisms underlying community assembly and the emergence of biotic interaction networks, but also macroecological and macroevolutionary patterns such as species distributions and diversification patterns.

Recurring themes across this work:

Community assembly and biotic interaction networks
Biodiversity patterns at community, biogeographic and evolutionary scales
Species distribution models and diversification dynamics
Simulation-based inference and Bayesian statistics
Machine learning and deep learning applications in ecology

Articles: 126
Co-authors: 650
Citations: 30,692
h-index: 58
i10-index: 108

Citations, h-index and i10-index per Google Scholar, October 2026. Article count is the exact number of entries in the publication list on this site. Co-author count per Scopus.

Selected publications

Latitudinal patterns in stabilizing density dependence of forest communities

Lisa Hülsmann, Ryan A. Chisholm, Liza Comita, Marco D. Visser, Melina de Souza Leite, Salomón Aguilar, Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira, Norman A. Bourg, Warren Y. Brockelman, Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin, Nicolas Castaño, Chia-Hao Chang-Yang, George B. Chuyong, Keith Clay, Stuart J. Davies, Alvaro Duque, Sisira Ediriweera, Corneille Ewango, Gregory S. Gilbert, Jan Holík, Robert W. Howe, Stephen P. Hubbell, Akira Itoh, Daniel J. Johnson, David Kenfack, Kamil Král, Andrew J. Larson, James A. Lutz, Jean-Remy Makana, Yadvinder Malhi, Sean M. McMahon, William J. McShea, Mohizah Mohamad, Musalmah Nasardin, Anuttara Nathalang, Natalia Norden, Alexandre A. Oliveira, Renan Parmigiani, Rolando Perez, Richard P. Phillips, Nantachai Pongpattananurak, I-Fang Sun, Mark E. Swanson, Sylvester Tan, Duncan Thomas, Jill Thompson, Maria Uriarte, Amy T. Wolf, Tze Leong Yao, Jess K. Zimmerman, Daniel Zuleta, Florian Hartig

Nature, 627(8004), 564–571 (2024)

doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07118-4 77 citations

Novel community data in ecology — properties and prospects

Florian Hartig, Nerea Abrego, Alex Bush, Jonathan M. Chase, Gurutzeta Guillera-Arroita, Mathew A. Leibold, Otso Ovaskainen, Loïc Pellissier, Maximilian Pichler, Giovanni Poggiato, Laura Pollock, Sara Si-Moussi, Wilfried Thuiller, Duarte S. Viana, David I. Warton, Damaris Zurell, Douglas W. Yu

Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 39(3), 280–293 (2024)

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2023.09.017 111 citations

Machine learning and deep learning — a review for ecologists

Maximilian Pichler, Florian Hartig

Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 14(4), 994–1016 (2023)

doi:10.1111/2041-210X.14061 preprint 623 citations

Studying speciation and extinction dynamics from phylogenies: addressing identifiability issues

Hélène Morlon, Stéphane Robin, Florian Hartig

Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 37(6), 497–506 (2022)

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2022.02.004 90 citations

Is variation in conspecific negative density dependence driving tree diversity patterns at large scales?

Lisa Hülsmann, Ryan A. Chisholm, Florian Hartig

Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 36(2), 151–163 (2021)

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2020.10.003 96 citations

The latitudinal diversity gradient: novel understanding through mechanistic eco-evolutionary models

Mikael Pontarp, Lynsey Bunnefeld, Juliano S. Cabral, Rampal S. Etienne, Susanne A. Fritz, Rosemary Gillespie, Catherine H. Graham, Oskar Hagen, Florian Hartig, Shan Huang, Roland Jansson, Odile Maliet, Tamara Münkemüller, Loïc Pellissier, Thiago F. Rangel, David Storch, Thorsten Wiegand, Allen H. Hurlbert

Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 34(3), 211–223 (2019)

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2018.11.009 285 citations

EU agricultural reform fails on biodiversity

Guy Pe'er, Lynn V. Dicks, Piero Visconti, Raphael Arlettaz, András Báldi, Tim G. Benton, Sarah Collins, Martin Dieterich, Richard D. Gregory, Florian Hartig, Klaus Henle, Peter R. Hobson, David Kleijn, Rebecca K. Neumann, Tim Robijns, Jenny Schmidt, Assaf Shwartz, William J. Sutherland, Anne Turbé, Florian Wulf, Alexander V. Scott

Science, 344(6188), 1090–1092 (2014)

doi:10.1126/science.1253425 924 citations

All 126 publications →

Software

DHARMa

Simulation-based residual diagnostics for generalized linear mixed models and other hierarchical regression models.

BayesianTools

MCMC and SMC samplers and diagnostics for Bayesian statistics, with a focus on calibrating complex process-based models.

All software →

Contact

Florian Hartig
Faculty of Biology and Preclinical Medicine
University of Regensburg
Universitätsstraße 31
93053 Regensburg, Germany

To contact me or my secretary, please see our team page. You can also reach me on Bluesky or LinkedIn.