He is a Professor at the Department of Biology at Aarhus University, Denmark where he also serves as the Director of DNRF Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO), established in 2023.

[1] Svenning is known for his research in macroecology, biogeography, biodiversity, the effects of climate change on biomes, rewilding, and human-environment interactions across historical and future contexts with a specific focus on concepts like disequilibrium dynamics and the impacts of top-down trophic processes.

[10] Svenning began his academic career in 1999 as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences at Aarhus University, followed by a Postdoctoral position at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution during 2000-2002.

[19] He also determined that microhabitat specialization, particularly related to topography, is a key factor in maintaining the diversity of palm species in Yasuní National Park.

[20] Svenning's work in biogeography has involved using a variety of methods to understand how different factors have influenced the distribution of species and ecosystems over time.

[23] He also contributed to a related European study showing that the rate of increase in plant species richness on mountain summits in Europe has accelerated in recent decades, linked to climate warming.

In further collaborative research, he determined that cultural filtering has been the dominant driver of megafauna range contractions in China over the past 2 millennia.

[32] More recently, in 2023, Svenning conducted a joint study with Lemoine and Buitenwerf and found that human impact had been the primary driver of late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions, outperforming climatic models.

[36] In an earlier review in 2002, he estimated that closed forests would have predominated in north-western Europe under existing natural conditions, but open vegetation would also be frequent in varied settings and maintained by large herbivores and fire.

[37] In 2023, in work led by Pearce, he and colleagues showed based on extensive pollen records that substantial light woodland and open vegetation characterized the temperate forest biome in Europe during the Last Interglacial, suggesting the rich megafauna as a likely key driver of this structure.

In a collaborative research, with colleagues he showed that using a multilevel approach with satellite data can significantly enhance the prediction of household wealth in rural areas, aiding the monitoring of poverty-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

[50] Additionally, jointly with his team he also developed the TREECHANGE database,[51] as well as the Botanical Information Ecology Network (BIEN) where ecologists, botanists and computer scientists assemble worldwide data on plant geographic distribution, diversity, and functionality.