• Biodiversity and agroecology
• Interlinkages between biodiversity, food and climate
• Approaches and methods: Archetype analysis, multivariate statistics, dynamic modelling
• Regional focus: Europe, South America, Africa and global drylands

• Lead author IPBES Nexus Assessment
• Invited Speaker and Reviewer, e.g. IPCC, UNFCCC and UNCCD SPI
• Commissioned expert studies and policy papers, e.g. for UNEP (Global Environmental Outlook 4) and German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)

Targeted agroecological action to enhance biodiversity in agricultural landscapes
Reversing the decline of farmland biodiversity lies at the heart of the United Nations' global vision of “Living in Harmony with Nature”, but there is currently little guidance on how it can be effectively achieved. Rooted in land system science, I synthesise complex interactions between species, habitats and agriculture. I focus on shared landscapes in which biodiversity and agriculture thoughtfully interact to provide insights into the suitability of specific agroecological farming approaches to guide policy towards most effective response options. Archetypes of social-ecological interactions, critical thresholds and catastrophic shifts in socio-ecological systems receive attention. I have worked in Europe, Latin America and Africa, often in drylands and high-mountain regions, in close collaboration with local communities, ministries, development agencies, international agricultural research centres and UN organisations.

I am a lead author of  IPBES Nexus Assessment, the thematic assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

I coordinate Future Earth’s Global Land Programme (GLP) Working Groups on "Policy Tailoring for Sustainable Land Systems Transformation" and “Archetype Analysis in Sustainability and Land Governance Research”.

I am an Associate Editor at Regional Environmental Change Journal.

• Member of Global Land Project
• Associate Editor: Regional Environmental Change

• ResearchGate

Sietz, D., Niamir, A., Müller, D., Hickler, T., Kanemoto, K., Moran, D.D. and Thonicke, K. (2025) Mapping human-nature archetypes to guide global biodiversity, food security, and land-use policy. One Earth 8(8), 10141, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101416

Kasiske, T., Klimek, S., Dauber, J., Harpke, A., Kühn, E., Levers, C., Schwieder, M., Settele, J., Sietz, D., Tetteh, G.O. and Musche, M. (2025) Identifying typical patterns of land-use and landscape structure in citizen science butterfly monitoring. Ecol Indic 180:114317, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.114317

Harrison, P. A., McElwee, P. D., [...] Sietz, D., Turetta, A. P. D., and Obura, D. (2024) Chapter 1: Introducing the nexus. In: Thematic Assessment Report on the Interlinkages among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Harrison, P. A., McElwee, P. D., and van Huysen, T. L. (eds.). IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13850293

McElwee, P. D., Sitas, N., [...] Sietz, D., Smith, P., Spierenburg, M., Vallet, A., Williams, D. R., and Xie, L. (2024) Chapter 7: Summary and synthesis of options, knowledge and technology gaps and capacity development. In: Thematic Assessment Report on the Interlinkages among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. McElwee, P. D., Harrison, P. A., and van Huysen, T. L. (eds.). IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13850355

Orozco, R., Meyer-Jürshof, M., Vergara-Rodríguez, K., Václavík, T. und Sietz, D. (2024) Dynamic archetypes of agricultural land systems in Germany from 1992 to 2019. Land Use Policy 145, 107281, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107281

Oberlack, C., Pedde, S., Piemontese, L., Václavík, T. und Sietz, D. (2023) Archetypes in support of tailoring land-use policies. Environ. Res. Lett. 18 060202, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd802

Sietz, D., Klimek, S. & Dauber, J. (2022) Tailored pathways toward revived farmland biodiversity can inspire agroecological action and policy to transform agriculture. Commun Earth Environ 3, 211, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00527-1