Biography

Nikolina has a MSc degree in Geographical Sciences from Utrecht University. Shortly after graduation, she joined ESRIN as a Young Graduate Trainee where she was working on data fusion techniques for EO applications. In 2020, Nikolina started her PhD at the University of Augsburg, during which she studied the biogeophysical effects of deforestation using Earth System Models and EO data. In her current role, Nikolina is contributing to the development of a new generation of biodiversity observation products. She will continue working on the synergistic use of data from various instruments and sources for the advancement of biodiversity monitoring capabilities.

Research

Biodiversity is essential for life on Earth. Many ecosystem services on which humans depend such as food production, freshwater supply and clean air, are supported and provided by plant diversity through the cycling of nutrients. The Anthropocene is marked by a rapid biodiversity decline – the “sixth mass extinction”. Many plant species are threatened by extinction due to drought stress, competition with invasive species and pathogens, anthropogenic land use change (Cavender-Bares et al., 2020). The introduction of the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) is an effort to detect and document this biodiversity loss (Pereira et al. 2013). Yet, we still don’t have fully operational workflows that allow the creation of EBVs in an automated fashion and with widespread coverage (Fernandez et al., 2020). The challenge of the spatial scale ranging from single leaf to the canopy, ecosystem and global level is a major bottleneck (Cavender-Bares et al., 2020). In my research I will approach the aforementioned gaps.