Lisa Tedeschi

I got a joint PhD in Evolutionary and Environmental Biology from Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Vienna. My work lies at the interface of invasion science and conservation biology. I am interested in large-scale biodiversity patterns, drivers of biodiversity loss (especially invasive species and human-induced climate change), and protected areas. My primary research taxon is mammals, but I am interested in all tetrapods.

Projects & Collaborations

Current projects

In the project TETRA-CHANGE I will explore, with the help of international collaborators, changes in tetrapod communities within protected areas under different scenarios, identifying priority sites for functionally unique native threatened species.

Past projects

I was part of the OneSTOP (OneBiosecurity Systems and Technology for People, Places and Pathways) EU Horizon project #101180559. There, I was involved in the creation of spatio-temporal prioritisation maps to guide management actions, supporting the goal of reducing IAS impacts to European IUCN Red Listed species by 50% by 2030.

Collaborations

If you're interested in collaborating with me, please get in touch! I'm mainly interested in the following topics, but I'm very open to discuss new exciting ideas, especially interdisciplinary research.

• Environmental impacts from IAS
• Species Distribution Models
• Spatial macroecological analyses
• Protected areas
• Threatened species and extinction risk
• Functional ecology
• DEIJ in academia

Conference organization

Conferences can be great opportunities, especially for early career researchers (ECRs), to present their research, get to know peers in the field, establish connections and collaborations, and share ideas. I have always enjoyed conferences, and I had the opportunity to organize a few of them. Being an ECR myself, I have tried my best to create an environment that is stimulating, safe, and enjoyable for all the participants.

SCB ECR Conferences 2023 & 2025

I was the Chair of the local organizing committee for the 1^st conference for ECRs in conservation biology in Italy (2023), organized by the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) Italy Chapter. We had more than 100 participants, and organizing a conference from scratch was a real challenge (but also a lot of fun).
After this great success, we decided to host a 2^nd edition of the conference (2025), where more than 170 ECRs attended and where I was part of the steering committee.

European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB) 2024

In collaboration with the University of Bologna, we had the opportunity to organize the 7^th European Congress of Conservation Biology, of which I was a vice-president. Managing more than 1000 conference participants and 50 volunteers during the hot and humid Italian summer was definitely a challenge, but I am pretty sure we made ECCB2024 memorable.
I was also one of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) referees for ECCB2024, trying my best to make the conference a safe and respectful space for everyone.
For the organization of ECCB 2024, I was awarded the prestigious Bologna Ambassador award from the city of Bologna. Here [in Italian] you can watch a short interview about the award.

Outreach

I think science shouldn’t always just be aimed at writing a paper out of years of hard work. Since every human being is already (or will soon be) involved in the biodiversity crisis, we should all be informed about what is causing this crisis, and what we can do about that. This is why I try to communicate the results of my work beyond the academic sphere.

Newspapers

Being a young researcher in Austria, I was interviewed from the newspaper Die Presse [in German].
I was interviewed for the scientific magazine of Sapienza University of Rome [in italian] regarding the interface between biological invasions and conservation biology, and my daily work in Vienna and Rome.

My PhD research has been reported by national and international newspapers several times. Below you can find a selection of some articles.

• Invasive Arten in alter Heimat oft selbst bedroht [in German]
  
• Fremde Arten: Was Aliens mit dem Tierschutz zu tun haben [in German]
  
• How non-native species are saving themselves from extinction [in English]
  
• Il paradosso della conservazione: chi si preoccupa delle specie aliene? [in Italian]
  
• Quando le specie aliene invasive sono in pericolo nei loro habitat d’origine: un paradosso della conservazione [in Italian]
  


• Eingeschleppte Säugetiere breiten sich schnell aus – das birgt Gefahren [in German]
  
• Danni agli ecosistemi e malattie, l'impatto delle specie aliene in Europa è devastante [in Italian]

Society for Conservation Biology Italy Chapter

Since 2025, I am the vice-president of the SCB Italy Chapter. The Society is the leading scientific body association in Italy for professionals and experts in conservation biology.

Podcast

With SCB Italy Chapter, we launched a podcast on conservation biology, specifically tailored to ECRs. I hosted the episodes on DEIJ and working abroad, and co-hosted the episode on gender gap. You can listen to the podcast here [in Italian].

My Values

This part is very important to me, so I will take a bit of time to write this down.

Publications

The following studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals. However, I am omitting the name of the journals - you can simply read the paper if you want to know more about that research.
If you cannot access a paper for some reason, please refrain from using a tool like sci-hub or getting in touch with me (or any of the other authors) to get a copy of the paper, because I would never encourage you to not fuel the fabulous publishing industry which does not at all exploit our time and resources.

• Moshobane C., Ravhuanzwo F., Tedeschi L., Shivambu N., Shivambu T.C., Nelufule T. (2025) A retrospective on the environmental and socio-economic impacts associated with regulated invasive mammal species in South Africa. DOI: 10.35885/1996-1499-18-3-208-211
• Tedeschi L., Lenzner B., Schertler A., Wessely J., Biancolini D., Capinha C., Melone B., Soria C.D., Rondinini C., Essl F. (2025) Patterns and drivers of range filling of alien mammals in Europe. DOI: 10.1002/oik.11388
• Tedeschi L., Lenzner B., Schertler A., Biancolini D., Rondinini C., Essl F. (2025) Threatened mammals with alien populations: distributions, causes, and conservation. DOI: 10.1111/conl.13069
• Schertler A, Tedeschi L., Essl F. (2024) Reeves’ muntjac (Muntiacus reveesi) in Austria. DOI: 10.3391/bir.2024.13.3.10
• Lenzner B., Colling G., Dullinger S., Fugger J., García-Rodríguez A., Glaser M., Hennenfeind J.H., Kaplan E., Liu D., Omer A., Pauchard A., Roy H.E., Schernhammer T., Schertler A., Stoett P., Tedeschi L., Vorstenbosch T., Wessely J., Essl F. (2024) The neglected importance of managing biological invasions for sustainable development. DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10712
• Vincent C., Cristiano A., Cuadros-Casanova I., Pacifici M., Soria C. D., Tedeschi L., Beekmann M., D'alessio A., Lucas P. M., Nania D., Rondinini C. (2023). The war in Ukraine is changing plausible future socioeconomic scenarios leading to an unexplored outlook for biodiversity. DOI: 10.1111/csp2.13056
• Tedeschi L., Biancolini D., Capinha C., Rondinini C., Essl F. (2022). Introduction, spread, and impacts of invasive alien mammal species in Europe. DOI: 10.1111/mam.12277

• Google Scholar Check out my Google Scholar!

Contact Me

Lisa Tedeschi, PhD, she/her

lisa.tedeschi[at]univie.ac.at
Division of BioInvasions, Global Change, and Macroecology, Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, University of Vienna.
Global Mammal Assessment, Department of Biology and Biotechnologies "Charles Darwin", Sapienza University of Rome.

Also, please note that all the pictures on this website, if not stated otherwise, have been taken by me.