Jens-Christian Svenning

Biography

Dr. Jens-Christian Svenning is a Professor of Ecology at the Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Denmark, and Director of the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO). His research focuses on understanding the dynamics of biodiversity, ecosystems, and the biosphere under global environmental change, with particular emphasis on macroecology, biogeography, vegetation dynamics, and the roles of disturbance, megafauna, and human activity across deep time and the Anthropocene.

Professor Svenning’s work addresses fundamental questions about how climate change, land use, and biotic interactions jointly shape ecosystem structure, functioning, and resilience across forests, savannas, grasslands, and novel ecosystems worldwide. By integrating large-scale data synthesis, field ecology, palaeoecology, remote sensing, and modelling, his research bridges basic ecological theory with applied challenges in conservation, restoration, rewilding, and future socio-ecological scenarios. Through extensive international collaboration and leadership of major research initiatives, he aims to advance a process-based understanding of ecosystem change while informing science-based strategies for biodiversity conservation and sustainable land stewardship in a rapidly transforming biosphere.