@HELICS_Lab

Helsinki Lab of Interdisciplinary Conservation Science

 Helsinki, Finland
helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/helsinki-lab-of-interdisciplinary-conservation-science
Joined March 2019
  • Tweets26
  • Following167
  • Followers383
10Media
🌟Paper out in Nature Review Biodiversity: "Global Trends and Impacts of the Online Illegal Wildlife Trade." Our paper provides a comprehensive overview of how online illegal wildlife trade threatens species, ecosystems, and public health. Link: rdcu.be/fBDcI
68
🚨Great experience at #ECCB2026! After an inspiring week of sharing research, exchanging ideas, and connecting with fellow conservationists, we want to thank everyone who made this event so memorable.🫶 Together, we continue to build collaborations for biodiversity conservation!
55
🌍 HELICS at #ECCB2026! 🌱 • @Miquel_TT: Large carnivores & online news media , 7 July, 15:10. • Federico: Biodiversity complexity , 8 July, 10:00. • Haozhong: Birds & conservation interest , 9 July, 11:30. 📍Want to learn more about our work? Come meet us at the conference!
96
🚨🚨New publication: “Community-level functional stability in East African herbivores amid major environmental change” Interdisciplinary work with contribution from #HELICS , advancing understanding of ecosystem resilience and functional stability. 🔍 sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
31
New research! Lab founder Enrico di Minin is an author on this paper exploring the cultural differences in attitudes towards wildlife and how these can originate from varying colonial histories. doi.org/10.1038/s41893-026-0…

Enduring cultural legacies affect Euro-American wildlife values

Nature Sustainability - Little is known about how values emerge, evolve and affect people’s relation with their natural environment. A study now sheds light on the influence of the...

nature.com
32
🌟Excited to share a new paper from HELICS!📄✨ Based on text & image data from the Chinese social media platform Weibo, we reveal how people emotionally respond to urban nature and how different parks contribute to diverse emotional well-being benefits.🌿 doi.org/10.34133/ehs.0537

Multimodal Social Media Analysis Reveals Emotional Diversity in Urban Green Spaces | Ecosystem...

Urban green spaces (UGSs) are essential for human health and well-being. Data limitations in rapidly growing megacities such as China prevent assessing the mental benefits that nature can have on...

spj.science.org
30
Happy Biodiversity Day! 🌱🐼🌍
UN Environment Programme
@UNEPMay 22
Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth — from plants and animals to tiny microorganisms — that keeps our ecosystems healthy and resilient.  Yet habitat loss, pollution, and climate change are pushing nature to the brink.   This #BiodiversityDay, find out how you can take action: cbd.int/biodiversity-day/202…
25
Enjoyed this camera trap video, with one small step in the fight against habitat fragmentation 🦧
ABC News
@ABCApr 28
A Sumatran orangutan has been filmed for the first time using a human-made canopy bridge to cross a public road on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, conservationists said Monday.
44
Brilliant work from our Data Science MSc students today! New dashboard tracking online interest in species worldwide 📊🦎🌿 Discovering which species people search for—and what that tells us about conservation priorities. Stay tuned! #DataScience #BiodiversityConservation
1
1
60
🚨🚨New research alert: Spotted hyaena distribution in Kenya is shaped not just by prey or livestock, but by humans’ propensity to kill them. Understanding human behavior is key to carnivore #conservation. 🌍🍪 Open access: sciencedirect.com/science/ar… @helsinkiuni
2
2
87
The planet’s undisturbed old-growth boreal forests may be far more important in the fight against climate change than previously realized, according to a new Science study, which finds that primary forests in Sweden store over 70% more carbon than managed secondary forests. Learn more: scim.ag/4uL06hL
12
213
14
431
25,291
Conservation planning experts in training ✨ The annual Spatial conservation planning course at #HelsinkiUni is well underway, led by HELICS members. Today is our second practical on using the cutting-edge Zonation 5 conservation prioritization software. Exciting stuff! 🖥️🌍🌿
40
Great catch-up and celebrations for a new paper out! At today’s HELICS meeting, we had our regular catch-up, shared recent research progress, and celebrated Federico’s new paper out with oat cookies, macarons and bubbles. Cheers!🥂
2
57
What causes biodiversity loss? Land- and sea-use change, overexploitation, invasive species, climate change, and pollution are the direct drivers pushing species towards extinction - but what are the indirect drivers behind them? 📉(1/2)
1
46
New in @PLOSONE: Our protocol for a global systematic map of the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss. Full paper: doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone… Congrats to Federico Grossi & the team! 👏 #ConservationScience #Biodiversity (2/2)

What is the evidence on indirect drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide? A systematic map protocol

An estimated 1 million species of animals and plants are threatened with extinction. While much research has concentrated on direct drivers (e.g., land use change) of biodiversity loss, understanding...

journals.plos.org
34
Destroying wild ecosystems doesn't just reduce biodiversity but has repercussions for local communities losing ecosystem services and contributes to the climate disaster by eliminating these valuable carbon sinks. At HELICS we're examining the drivers behind trends like this.
PNASNews@PNASNewsFeb 26
Deforestation gets all the attention, but wetlands and grasslands like Brazil’s Cerrado are being converted to agriculture at four times the rate of forests worldwide. Half of the converted land becomes pasture and 27% becomes food crops. In PNAS: ow.ly/XhkI50YmuQk
Row crop field located on converted Cerrado savannah vegetation, Bahia, Brazil. CREDIT: Samuel A. Levy, (slevy@ra.org)

ALT Row crop field located on converted Cerrado savannah vegetation, Bahia, Brazil. CREDIT: Samuel A. Levy, ([email protected])

33
Social media may provide data that can revolutionise our understanding of species distribution - and strengthen global biodiversity datasets, for example. New paper by iDiv alumnus @shawan_c in Conservation Biology: idiv.de/social-media-images-…
Tawny coster / Credit: S. Chowdhury

ALT Tawny coster / Credit: S. Chowdhury

10
19
540
Happy #WorldWildlifeDay! Let's keep doing the work to bring more and more wild populations towards recovery.
UN Environment Programme
@UNEPMar 3
One million of the world’s estimated 8 million species are threatened with extinction. But hope is not lost. #GenerationRestoration is reviving habitats, bringing back homes for threatened species. This #WorldWildlifeDay, discover six species making a comeback: unep.org/news-and-stories/st…
1
33
It’s the Saimaa ringed seal! 🦭 1️⃣ Population: <200 in Finland 2️⃣ Tracks: Oversized paw prints in snow 3️⃣ Habitat: Only in Lake Saimaa Want to know more?❄️ Take a look at: pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pn… #SaimaaSeal #WildlifeConservation

Deep origins, distinct adaptations, and species-level status indicated for a glacial relict seal |...

Isolated populations of postglacial relicts are known from many regions and are typically found on mountains for terrestrial species and in lakes f...

pnas.org
44
Guess the endangered species 🌊 1️⃣ Fewer than 200 of us live in Finland 2️⃣ We leave oversized tracks in fresh snow 3️⃣ Our home is a freshwater lake in Saimaa Did you guess? 🤔 #EndangeredSpecies #Conservation
1
70
Load more