SAILS Lunch Time Seminar: Marco Visser, 10/11/2025

Hidden interactions: where theory, biophysics, and machine learning meet ecology

Dr. Ir. Marco D. Visser is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University. He studies how multiple global-change stressors interact to affect ecosystems - from chemical pollution to tropical forest disturbance. As a theoretical macroecologist, he works to connect big data with big theory. A central challenge lies in the interactive effects of stressors, which remain largely unknown, compounded by the fact that empirical data are often scarce, incomplete, and biased. His research integrates ecological theory, mechanistic models, and modern computation to infer and prioritise these interactions across scales. Machine learning serves as a practical tool rather than a goal: it helps identify informative patterns, emulate slow physical models, and guide experiments where data are most valuable. Examples include predicting mixture risks in surface waters, revealing a global “pandemic” of lianas in tropical forests, and mapping ecosystem consequences from space. From a bird’s-eye view, I will show how combining ecology, biophysics,  and data-driven inference can expose hidden interactions, reveal where current theory falls short, and advance our ability to forecast ecological change.