Community Ecology ¶

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Topics
Projects
Research Groups and Staff

The Research Unit focuses on functional interactions between communities of plants (producers), herbivores (primary consumers), predators (secondary consumers), and soil biota (decomposers) with regard to critical ecosystem services such as productivity, protection, nutrient cycling and storage. Environmental factors considered include direct and indirect anthropogenic impacts with global relevance such as land-use change (e.g. land abandonment, fragmentation, urban sprawl, eutrophication, trivialization of herbivore communities), natural disturbances (e.g. avalanches, landslides, fire) or climatic changes. Particular emphasis is given to sensitive natural, semi-natural and urban ecosystems, among many others wetlands, treeline ecotones and insubric ecosystems. Comparing history and modeling functional processes in and between these systems provides clues for predicting biodiversity changes, the evolution of ecosystems, and consequences for ecosystem services in the context of future global change.

The Unit has partners both within WSL and the wider scientific community. Stakeholders are mainly the forest and agricultural services, nature conservation, forest owners, regional and federal agencies.

Topics ¶

Forest fires

We examine factors that increase the risk of forest fires and develop tools for predicting them.

Invasive species

Large numbers of plants, animals and fungi migrate to Switzerland, with damaging consequences.

Projects ¶

Understanding how ecosystems' carbon balance will adapt to global changes and land-use shifts is of major interest for society. Stabilization of organic matter in soil is essential for the Earth's carbon cycle.

“Flavescence dorée” (FD) is a harmful grapevine disease associated with the quarantine organism ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma vitis’ (FDp), which may survive in the landscape on deciduous woody species such as black alder (Alnus glutinosa) as well as on gone-wild grapevines.

We aim to understand how above- and belowground communities (invertebrates, plants, soil microbes) interactively respond to livestock removal and how these changes affect biotic interaction networks, ecosystem functioning and services.

During periods of low water availability, trees differently modulate C and H2O fluxes to balance photosynthesis, growth, and other metabolic activities. However, we still do not know how increased vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and reduced soil water availability periods affect whole-tree hydraulics.

Sind potenziell zukunftsfähige Arten, die hitze- und trockentolerant sind, auch genug frosttolerant? Wir untersuchen, wie sich wärmere Winter auf die Frosthärte verschiedener, aktuell als zukunftsfähig eingestufter Baumarten auswirken.

Research Groups and Staff ¶