Dr. Niklaus Zimmermann - Personal Homepage

head of research unit Organisational unit: Landscape Dynamics Phone: +41 44 7392 337 Fax: +41 44 7392 215 Room: Bi HL E 22 E-Mail: Address: Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Zürcherstrasse 111 8903 Birmensdorf Keywords: member of the WSL directorate

I lead a research team around the topics of monitoring and modelling pattern and dynamics at the landscape scale, mainly of the European Alps. Funding somes primarily from EU- and National Science Foundation grants, from SAEFL and WSL, and occasionally from US-NSF and USDA Forest Service. We use mostly GIS and remote sensing, as well as our own programs combined with mathematical and statistical data analyses. Personally, I am involved in a series of ongoing projects. My own research has four center points: 1) GIS based modelling of habitat distribution and of biophysical properties at the landscape scale; 2) Scaling of biogeochemistry models from stands to landscapes; 3) remote sensing based monitoring and modelling of landscape pattern and its change over time; and 4) development and improvements of gap dynamic models for improved simulation of forest dynamics.

Research Interests

I am specifically interested in vegetation ecology, vegetation dynamics, and plant species diversity at various spatial and temporal scales. In the past few years, my research has focused on modelling biophysical constraints of species and community distribution along spatial (real) and theoretical gradients, and on modeling species competitive dynamics on large spatial scales.

This research required the interaction of plant ecophysiology, ecological theory, biophysical ecology and involved mainly GIS-analyses, programming and statistics. Additionally, I have a strong sympathy for field floristics, species diversity theories, and ecological theories in general.

Adress

Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
Zürcherstr. 111
CH-8903 Birmensdorf
Switzerland                 

Secretary

tel: +41.(0)44-739-2579
fax:    +41 (0)44-739-2215
email:  sibylle.hauser @ wsl.ch