Background & experience
About me
PhD candidate in Ecology at the University of Vienna.
Download CV (PDF · August 2026)I am an ecologist based in Vienna, working on long-term changes in plant communities and biological invasions. My doctoral research examines evidence of local plant community change and the opportunities and limitations of vegetation resurveys.
My work combines ecological data synthesis, statistical analysis, and the development of data workflows. I have contributed to collaborative projects including ReSurveyEurope, global assessments of biological invasions, and the IPBES Invasive Alien Species Assessment.
Education
- PhD in Ecology — University of Vienna · 2022–ongoing
- MSc in Ecology — Middle East Technical University · 2021
- BSc in Biology — Hacettepe University · 2018
Research experience
Before my PhD, I worked on functional redundancy in native and alien urban flora at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). I also collaborated with the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre on alien species data and the DASCO workflow.
My master’s research examined how plant diversity and ground cover affect seedling establishment in Central Anatolian steppe vegetation, using experimental manipulation and field observations.
Methods & tools
My experience includes ecological data analysis and visualisation in R, GIS, data wrangling, literature synthesis, and vegetation sampling. I also work with Python, SQL, Unix, and Git.
Contact
Email: ekinkaplan@gmail.com
You can also find my work on Google Scholar and ORCID.