

My research
Pollination processes are at the heart of well-functioning and resilient ecosystems, yet pollinators are currently facing multiple threats. My aim is to contribute to a deeper understanding and effective mitigation of disruptions within the intricate plant-pollinator networks in semi-natural grasslands.
Within my PhD project, I am interested in discovering
- how pollinator declines influence plant community composition and plant trait expression in grassland plant communities
- how pollinator-mediated changes in the plant community affect pollinators again in return, and
- what these effects mean for ecosystem functioning and resilience to stressors like extreme weather events.
My background
I bring a background in global change ecology to this project, a specialization I chose for my master's degree at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna. In the past, I have also been involved in the Austrian Panel of Climate Change's interdisciplinary report on health, demography and climate change, studied a grassland butterfly facing challenges due to habitat fragmentation at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and worked as a field assistant in a project on pollinator exposure to pesticides in red clover fields here at Lund University.
Publications
Displaying of publications. Sorted by year, then title.
Pollinator-mediated effects of landscape-scale land use on grassland plant community composition and ecosystem functioning – seven hypotheses
Veronica Hederström, Johan Ekroos, Magne Friberg, Theresia Krausl, Øystein H. Opedal, et al.
(2024) Biological Reviews, 99 p.675-698
Journal articlePollinators, pests and yield—Multiple trade-offs from insecticide use in a mass-flowering crop
Jessica L. Knapp, Adam Bates, Ove Jonsson, Björn Klatt, Theresia Krausl, et al.
(2022) Journal of Applied Ecology, 59 p.2419-2429
Journal articleExperimental indications of gardeners' anecdotes that snails interfere with invasive slugs
Daniel Dörler, Verena Dorn, Theresia Widhalm, Micha Horacek, Florian Heigl, et al.
(2021) PeerJ, 9
Journal articlePopulation dynamics of the butterfly Pyrgus armoricanus after translocation beyond its northern range margin
Theresia Widhalm, Yoan Fourcade, Thomas Frank, Erik Öckinger
(2020) Insect Conservation and Diversity, 13 p.617-629
Journal articleUmfrage: Ist die spanische Wegschnecke ein Problem für die Grünlandwirtschaft in Österreich?
Theresia Widhalm, Daniel Dörler, Johann G. Zaller
(2018) Der Pflanzenarzt, 71
Journal articleÖsterreichischer Special Report Gesundheit, Demographie und Klimawandel (ASR18)
Franz Allerberger, Theresia Widhalm, Kathrin Lemmerer, Maja Zuvela-Aloise
(2018)
ReportSingle and Combined Effects of Pesticide Seed Dressings and Herbicides on Earthworms, Soil Microorganisms, and Litter Decomposition
Willem Van Hoesel, Alexandra Tiefenbacher, Nina König, Verena M. Dorn, Julia F. Hagenguth, et al.
(2017) Frontiers in Plant Science, 8
Journal article