PhD Tsipe Aavik

Researcher
Tsipe.Aavik [at] ut.ee

My research is focused on the plant diversity patterns in agricultural landscapes. I began my studies participating in two pan-European projects, GREENVEINS and AGRIPOPES, where I looked at plant species diversity of small-area natural and semi-natural habitats in intensively managed and fragmented agricultural landscapes. I am interested to what extent these marginal habitats such as field margins, ditch verges and small remnant grasslands can mitigate the large-scale loss of natural and semi-natural habitats. I also want to know what is the influence of landscape structure and agricultural land use intensity on the vegetation of these habitats. Within the frames of the Estonian Science Foundation post-doctoral research grant “Assessing the effectiveness of connectivity measures on gene flow and genetic diversity of wildflowers in agricultural landscapes – a landscape genetic approach” in ETH Zürich (http://www.plantecology.ethz.ch/index_EN) I am applying genetic methods to answer the above-mentioned questions. In addition to that, I am interested in questions related to conservation genetics, in particular, how the use of commercial wildflower seed mixtures in ecological restoration will affect the genetic characteristics and consequent fitness of wildflower populations. See my CV and full publication list in Estonian Research Portal.