Research and Projects

Ongoing projects

• MANFRED - Management strategies to adapt Alpine Space forests to climate change risks. Funding: EU/Interreg - Alpine Space
• MOTIVE - Models for Adaptive Forest Management. Funding: EU-FP7
• MAIOLICA - Modelling and experiments on land-surface interactions with atmospheric chemistry and climate. Funding: ETH-Domain
• HyperSwissNet - A research and teaching network on hyperspectral remote sensing in Switzerland. Funding: SUK & ETH-Domain.
• ECOCHANGE - Challenges in assessing and forecasting biodiversity and ecosystem changes in Europe. Funding: EU-FP6.

Recently finished projects

• IntraBioDiv - Tracking surrogates for intraspecific biodiversity: towards efficient selection strategies for the conservation of natural genetic resources using comparative mapping and modelling approaches
  
• MfM-U/WSL - Monitoring flankierende Massnahmen-Umwelt: Der Beitrag der WSL zu den Bereichen Natur, Umwelt und gesellschaft
• PINE - Predicting impacts on natural ecotones
• Biome-BGC - Scaling carbon fluxes from stands to landscapes: Calibrating and testing Biome-BGC along multiple environmental gradients.
• Landspot - Landscape potential for animal species survival, colonization and dispersal: a spatial simulation study
• LAASIM - Predicting the distribution and dynamics of forest vegetation in the central Rocky Mountains: leaf area, sapwood, and site water balance at the tree, stand, and landscape level
• Developing a physiologically mechanistic tree migration model and simulating Holocene spread of forest trees
• Biophysical modeling for remote sensing applications and land-change detection
• Biophysical modeling of Northern Californian National Forests [Modoc/Lassen/Plumas]
• Calibrate real tree species for the LAASIM-model
• Biophysical modelling of the Shoshone National Forest
• Spatial interpolation of soil properties in the Omo National Park, Ethiopia
• Developing a spatially explicit and climatically sensitive model for predicting the spatial distribution of Swiss Alpine plants and plant communities

Research of my PhD and Master students

• Eliane Meier: Improved modelling and niche stability. This PhD is framed in and funded by the EU-FP6 IP ECOCHANGE. It aims at developing improved projections of climate and land use change impacts on species, biodiversity and ecosystems.. Funding: EU-FP6 IP ECOCHANGE Duration:1/2008 - 6/2011.
  

• Postdocs and visiting scientists

• Dr. Jed O. Kaplan: Was employed as postdoctoral research scientist in biogeochemical modelling of historical processes for 1.5 years. Funding: EU-FP6 MILLENIUM. Duration: 9/2006 - 3/2008.
  
• Dr. Thomas C. Edwards Utah State University: Has spent 8 months of a sabbatical stay in the lab. Funding: USGS and USU. Duration: 1/2007 - 8/2007.
  
• Dr. Elke Hodson: Is employed as postdoctoral research scientist for linking land use (change) and emissions of greenhouse gases. Funding: ETH CCES MAIOLICA. Duration: 8/2008 - ongoing.
  
• Dr. Achilleas Psomas: Is employed as postdoctoral research scientist for scaling the retrieval of canopy biochemistry from plots to landscape and for ecological remote sensing applications. Funding: ETHdomain/SUK HyperSwissNet. Duration: 1/2009 - 4/2011.
  
• Dr. Peter B. Pearman: Is employed as research scientist in predictive species and biodiversity modelling. Funding: EU-FP6 EcoChange. Duration: 1/2008 - ongoing.
  
• Dr. Ben Poulter: Will soon start his Marie Curie funded postdoctoral research project on "Advancing dynamic vegetation modelling for mountain systems vulnearble to climate and land-use change". Funding: EU-FP7 MTVEGMOD. Duration: 7/2009 - 6/2011.
  

Other PhD students I (co-)supervise (committee member)

• PhD - Wüest, Rafael: Ecological Niche Evolution in Restionaceae and Danthonioidae. This PhD project is supervised by Prof. Peter Linder, Botanical Institute, Univerrsity of Zürich. It aims at analyzing the patterns of niche evolution in clades that have spread across continents. Funding: SNF and other sources. Duration: 8/2008 - 7/2011.

Former PhD and masters students under my supervision

• PhD - Gehrig-Fasel, Jacqueline: Scenario modeling of Alpine tree lines in Switzerland:sensitivity to climate, land-use, and natural hazards. This PhD has been initiated by the Department of Landscape Inventories. It aims at developing a predictive model of timberline for the Swiss Alps. Scenario simulations will be performed to evaluate the potential for carbon sinks at the upper timberline. Funding: WSL. Duration: 1/2003 - 6/2006.
  
• PhD - Gellrich, Mario: Forest Expansion in the Swiss Alps: a quantitative analysis with an emphasis on structural change in agriculture. This PhD is part of the project WaSAlp, which is embedded in the NRP48 ALPSCAPE. It aims at developing a spatially explicit, predictive model that explains the key variables for biophysical and human-induced landscape change. Using scenario simulations, we will study the effects of climate and socio-economic drivers upon the potential landscape dynamics in the near future. Although linked with two other departments, this PhD is associated with my research team for statistical model development and GIS scenarios. Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation. Duration: 7/2002 - 6/2005.
  
• PhD - Leyk, Stefan: Uncertainty investigation in historical maps for retrospective landscape assessments. This PhD has been initiated by the Department of Landscape Inventories. It aims at using geographic data from historical (Siegried) maps in order to analyze different sources of uncertainty that may occur depending on subsequent target applications. In a first step, an automated algorithm is developed to map forest area from scanned Siegfried maps. Uncertainty analysis for mapping and retrieveing forests is performed in order allow the quantification of forest area change as indicated by these old historical maps.Funding: WSL. Duration: 7/2002 - 6/2005.
  
• PhD - Mathys, Lukas: A discrete forest in a fuzzy landscape?. This PhD is part of the project LI (Landscape Inventory), which is a new initiative at WSL extending the forest inventory activities to the whole landscape. The PhD project specifically addresses the high to medium spatial resolution for deriving continuous landscape parameters using LIDAR and Landsat Remote Sensing, and high resolution RGB imagery. A suite of scenario simulations and analyses are aimed at evaluating the applicability of these methods for monitoring a range of landscape characteristics.. Funding: WSL, Department Landscape Inventories. Duration: 1/2004 - 12/2007.
  
• PhD - Psomas, Achilleas: Hyperspectral remote sensing for ecological analyses of grassland ecosystems - spectral separability and derivation of NPP-related biophysical and biochemical parameters.. This PhD is linked to the TWW (National mapping of dry meadows and pastures) project, funded by SAEFL. It aims at developing a method for monitoring the state and trajectory of landscape elements over time evaluated against the historical range of variability of this same landscape element. The latter allows to assess the impact of climate on the landscape variability and on the bounds of this variability. Funding: SAEFL & WSL. Duration: 3/2004 - 4/2008.
  
• PhD - Rickebusch, Sophie: Modelling tree population dynamics at the Alpine and Boreal tree-line ecotones in response to climate and land-use change. This PhD is embedded in the EU project PINE. It aims at developing a dynamic landscape model for timberlines based on the existing gap model TreeMig. Scenario simulations are part of the model application for solving PINE project relevant questions. Funding: through BBW as part of the co-operative agreement with EU - FP5. Duration: 12/2002 - 11/2005.
  
• PhD - Rutherford, Gillian: The use of land-use statistics to investigate large-scale successional processes. This PhD is part of the project WaSAlp, which is embedded in the NRP48 ALPSCAPE. It aims at developing a nation-wide and spatially explicit landscape transition model. Using scenario simulations, we will study the effects of climate and socio-economic drivers upon the potential landscape dynamics in the near future. Although linked with two other departments, this PhD is associated with my research team for statistical model development and GIS scenarios. Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation. Duration: 8/2002 - 3/2006.
  
• PhD - Steinmann, Katharina: Testing basic assumptions of species richness hypotheses using plant species distribution data. This PhD is embedded in the EU project IntraBioDiv. It aims at analyzing diversity pattern at various organizational levels (genes, species, habitats) in the European Alps as well as in the Carpathians. The project aims at generating explanatory variables (climate- and topography-related) and at calibrating models for explaining diversity pattern at various scales.Funding: through BBW as part of the co-operative agreement with EU - FP6. Duration: 2/2004 - 4/2008.
  
• MSc - Wüest, Rafael: Investigating Niche Parameter Stability in Carex - A case study in Switzerland. This Master project is supervised together with Prof. Peter Linder, Botanical Institute, Univerrsity of Zürich. It aims at analyzing to what degree the stress tolerance of individual niche factors (drought, shade, frost, etc.) were stable during the evolutionary development of the genus Carex. Funding: none. Duration: 2/2007 - 7/2008.
  

PhD students where I was expert or committee member

Diploma students where I was expert or committee member

Programs and routines I make available

• Tools for analyzing, summarizing, and mapping of biophysical variable