My research explores philosophical issues that arise in relation to contemporary practices in ecology and related fields. Topics I have worked on include individuality, individual differences, individualised research, ecological niches, niche construction, animal tracking, open data, citizen science, behaviour, and biological sex.

My current project focuses on citizen science in ecology. I'm looking at how big citizen science platforms are used around the globe to document and study biodiversity. How does public participation affect ecological research? What is the epistemic value of citizen science? I will be focusing especially on whether and how big citizen science contributes to epistemic diversity in ecology, and what this means for its value for ecological research. 

In my previous postdoc at the University of Exeter in the UK, I was studying how new open science practices are shaping ecology within the project A Philosophy of Open Science for Diverse Research Environments (PHIL_OS). I did my PhD at Bielefeld University in Germany, where my PhD thesis was on individuality in behavioural ecology. Using qualitative, participatory, and conceptual methods I studied how researchers in an interdisciplinary research group understand and study individuality in relation to individual differences.

Journal Articles

Kaiser, Marie I., Anton Killin, Anja-Kristin Abendroth, Mitja D. Back, Bernhard T. Baune, Nicola Bilstein, Yves Breitmoser, et al. 2024. “Individualisation and Individualised Science across Disciplinary Perspectives.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 14 (3): 41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-024-00602-8.

Thinius, Alex, and Rose Trappes. 2024. ‘Sex Traits and Individual Differences: Stabilising and Destabilising Binary Categories in Biological Practice’. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. https://doi.org/10.1086/731829

Trappes, Rose. 2024. ‘Data Synthesis for Big Questions: From Animal Tracks to Ecological Models’. Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology. 16(1): 4. https://doi.org/10.3998/ptpbio.5259

Trappes, Rose. 2023. ‘How Tracking Technology Is Transforming Animal Ecology: Epistemic Values, Interdisciplinarity, and Technology-Driven Scientific Change’. Synthese 201:128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04122-5.

Trappes, Rose. 2022. ‘Individual Differences, Uniqueness, and Individuality in Behavioural Ecology’. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 96:18–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.08.007.

Trappes, Rose, Behzad Nematipour, Marie I Kaiser, Ulrich Krohs, Koen J. van Benthem, Ulrich R. Ernst, Jürgen Gadau, Peter Korsten, Joachim Kurtz, Holger Schielzeth, Tim Schmoll, Elina Takola. 2022. ‘How Individualized Niches Arise: Defining Mechanisms of Niche Construction, Niche Choice, and Niche Conformance’. BioScience 72 (6): 538–48. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac023.

Heydari, Arash, Ali Teymoori, and Rose Trappes. 2021. ‘Honor Killing as a Dark Side of Modernity: Prevalence, Common Discourses, and a Critical View’. Social Science Information 60 (1): 86–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018421994777.

Kaiser, Marie I., and Rose Trappes. 2021. ‘Broadening the Problem Agenda of Biological Individuality: Individual Differences, Uniqueness, and Temporality’. Biology and Philosophy 36:15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-021-09791-5.

Trappes, Rose. 2021. ‘Defining the Niche for Niche Construction: Evolutionary and Ecological Niches’. Biology & Philosophy 36 (3): 31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-021-09805-2.

Trappes, Rose, Daniel Cohnitz, Viorel Pâslaru, T. J. Perkins, and Ali Teymoori. 2020. ‘The Online Alternative: Sustainability, Justice, And Conferencing in Philosophy’. European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 16 (2): 145–71. https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.16.2.7.

Trappes, Rose. 2019. ‘Evaluating Elizabeth Grosz’s Biological Turn’. Hypatia 34 (4): 736–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12487.

Chapters in Edited Volumes

Trappes, Rose. 2024. ‘The Easy Difference: Sex in Behavioural Ecology’. In Purple Brains: Feminisms at the Limits of Philosophy, edited by Annabelle Dufourcq, Annemie Halsema, Katrine Smiet, and Karen Vintges, 98–105. Nijmegen: Radboud University Press. https://doi.org/10.54195/HSOV8373_CH07.

Kaiser, Marie I., and Rose Trappes. 2023. ‘Individual-Level Mechanisms in Ecology and Evolution’. In From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics, edited by William Bausman, Janella K. Baxter, and Oliver M. Lean, 116–52. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/jj.1431200.8.

Trappes, Rose, Behzad Nematipour, and Ulrich Krohs. 2022. ‘Introduction to Niches and Mechanisms in Ecology and Evolution’. Biology & Philosophy 37 (6): 55. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-022-09890-x.

Book Reviews

Trappes, Rose. 2024. ‘Reorienting the Debate on Biological Individuality: Politics and Practices’. Acta Biotheoretica 72: 4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-024-09479-9.

Trappes, Rose. 2020. ‘Simone de Beauvoir’s Philosophy of Individuation: The Problem of The Second Sex by Laura Hengehold’. philoSOPHIA 10: 131–35. https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2020.0008.

Trappes, Rose. 2020. ‘Almost but Not Quite Human: Defining the Human Species through Infrahuman Figures: Megan H. Glick: Infrahumanisms: Science, Culture, and the Making of Modern Non/Personhood. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2018, 288 Pp, USD$25.95 PB’. Metascience 29: 147–50. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11016-019-00466-2.

Trappes, Rose. 2018. “Review of Laura Hengehold, Nancy Bauer (Eds.): A Companion to Simone de Beauvoir.” Phenomenological Reviews. http://reviews.ophen.org/2018/09/22/laura-hengehold-nancy-bauer-eds-companion-to-simone-de-beauvoir/

Trappes, Rose. 2017. “Review of Karen Vintges: A New Dawn for the Second Sex: Women’s Freedom Practices in World Perspective.” Hypatia Reviews Online. http://hypatiareviews.org/reviews/content/331