Ecospat Group

The relationship between plant and butterfly biodiversity is altered by compound effects of human activities at landscape and regional scales Understanding how human activities influence biodiversity is a pressing challenge. Here, we ask whether obligate biotic interactions between plants an…

Link to the paper here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🆕 New paper from a former masters student, along with previous Ecospat members (@riva-ecology.bsky.social and @fcollart.bsky.social). Read more below!

Biodiversity: insufficient progress but some positive developments While there have been occasional positive developments and a slowdown in biodiversity loss since the turn of the millennium, the overall state of biodiversity in Switzerland remains inadequate. These ...

The overall state of #biodiversity in Switzerland remains inadequate. Check out the new report by the Swiss Biodiversity Forum of the SCNAT here (report in French): www.unil.ch/news/en/1768...

And learn more about the project here: www.valpar.ch/index_en.php...

Also available in French (valpar.ch/downloads/Va...) and German (valpar.ch/downloads/Va...)!

🆕New synthesis report: Resulting from 5 years of collaboration amongst a large inter/transdisciplinary research team (ValPar.CH) about the diverse values of nature in Switzerland, to inform evidence-based policy making and ensure effective nature conservation in the future. valpar.ch/downloads/Va...

Advancing species-based predictions of Nature’s contributions to people Nature’s contributions to people (NCP) are essential for human wellbeing, yet most assessments still rely on land-cover indicators that overlook how b…

🆕New paper: Advancing species-based predictions of Nature’s contributions to people by Pierre-Louis Rey et al. in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social. Authors introduce Species' Contributions to People (SCP), clarifying how individual species support different NCPs. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Join an upcoming event on January 23 in Bern: SWIFCOB 26 - "Avenir de la biodiversité en Suisse", with @antoineguisan.bsky.social as an invited speaker! This event will discuss a new report from the Swiss Biodiversity Forum, "Understanding and Acting for Biodiversity in Switzerland"

Identifying robust area-based conservation strategies to secure ecosystem service provision under uncertainties Area-based conservation remains the principal strategy for preserving biodiversity, yet current planning approaches inadequately consider two critical…

🆕Another new paper by Ben Black et al. on identifying robust area-based conservation strategies to secure ecosystem service provision under uncertainties. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

On the use of neighboring habitats as predictors of species distributions Choosing the appropriate scale for measuring environmental predictors is needed for accurately modelling species distributions. This need is becoming increasingly important with the use of high-resol...

🆕 New paper: On the use of neighboring habitats as predictors of species distributions by @fcollart.bsky.social and Pierre-Louis Rey et al. about choosing the appropriate spatial scale at which environmental predictors are measured, critical for high-resolution SDMs. doi.org/10.1002/oik.11963

🆕 Book chapter: presenting the R package "ecospat", a set of tools for modeling and analyzing species niches and distributions. Authored by @fcollart.bsky.social @antoineguisan.bsky.social and Olivier Broennimann

Two FGSE professors among the most cited, according to Clarivate Antoine Guisan and Marco Keiluweit, both professors at the Faculty of Geosciences and Environment at UNIL, are featured on the prestigious list of the most cited scientists of 2025, compiled by Clariv...

Congratulations to @antoineguisan.bsky.social for being recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher for 2025 on Clarivate 📚

Check out the news story here:
www.unil.ch/news/1763621...

SDMapCH: a Comprehensive database of >7,500 modelled species habitat suitability maps for Switzerland - Scientific Data Scientific Data - SDMapCH: a Comprehensive database of >7,500 modelled species habitat suitability maps for Switzerland

Looking for biodiversity maps across Switzerland? Check out SDMapCH: a comprehensive database of >7,500 modelled species habitat suitability maps for Switzerland, by Adde et al. in Scientific Data
doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06037-x

Job offer: The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL is part of the ETH Domain. Approximately 600 people work on the sustainable use and protection of the environment and on the handling of natural hazards. The Forest and Soil Ecology research unit, which investigates the effects of environmental changes in forest ecosystems, is looking for a person to join the Ecosystem Ecology group for a fixed-term period of four years, starting January 2026 or by appointment, as a PhD student in plant phenology and ecophysiology You will be responsible for planning and carrying out experiments in the field and under controlled conditions in the SNF funded project “Linking carbon source-sink dynamics to autumn phenology: Predicting tree growth rhythms in temperature and boreal forests”. You will analyse the interaction between carbon balance and phenology by applying various ecophysiological and biochemical methods and large-scale data analyses. You will carry out statistical and mechanistic modelling approaches. Finally, you will be responsible for publishing results in scientific journals. You have a master’s degree in environmental science, or a comparable topic and are interested in applying various methods, from ecophysiology to model applications. You have a proficient command of written and spoken English, are able to work in a structured, efficient and independent manner, and have a high level of team spirit. Furthermore, you have a good level of fitness to carry out field work in remote locations. We offer an international team with exciting research perspectives and strong collaboration with researchers from ETH and international institutions. The position will be based at WSL and you will be enrolled at ETH Zurich.

🍂🌳 #PhDAlert! MSc in #EnvironmentalSciences or a related field and interested in plant #phenology and #ecophysiology? Good level of fitness to carry out field work in remote locations? Our #Ecosystem #Ecology group offers a #PhD position: apply.refline.ch/273855/1789/... #ScienceJobs

Please pass along, I’m recruiting PhD students to join our Macroecology Lab @uofa-eeb.bsky.social We study phys ecology, macroecology, biodiversity - spanning scaling, trait-based ecology, theory, comparative biology & ecoinformatics. Several avenues for funding. Please reach out if interested🧪🌐🌾

👏👏👏 Félicitations aux nouvelles et nouveaux récipiendaires @fbm-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social #Unil #CHUV #Unisanté

🎉 35 projets de #recherche financés @snsf.ch
À découvrir ici 👉 www.unil.ch/news/fr/1759...

Just two weeks left to apply for this #PhD position!

Come join the Ecospat Lab! We are accepting applications for a PhD position that will focus on modeling distributions of newcomer species (species that will enter Switzerland and Europe under climate change).

Apply here: bit.ly/docFGSE Application deadline Aug 15!

👏 Congratulations to @antoineguisan.bsky.social for being awarded the Jürg Tschopp Basic Life Sciences Award for his outstanding local and international contributions to understanding and predicting species distributions and communities, and the global impact of climate change on biodiversity!

Check out the latest Grime Reviews series in the @journalofecology.bsky.social, all about SDMs! Two papers were published from lab members: Guisan et al. 2025 about niche truncation (doi.org/10.1111/1365...) and Riva et al. 2024 about effects of habitat patches in SDMs (doi.org/10.1111/1365...).

Powerful yet challenging: mechanistic niche models for predicting invasive species potential distribution under climate change Risk assessments of invasive species present one of the most challenging applications of species distribution models (SDMs) due to the fundamental issues of distributional disequilibrium, niche chang...

🚨New review out in @ecography.bsky.social!
🔥Mechanistic niche models (MNMs) are the future—but they’re not plug-and-play.
Our paper lays out how and when to use MNMs to predict invasive species distributions under climate change.
nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Spatially nested species distribution models (N‐SDM): An effective tool to overcome niche truncation for more robust inference and projections N-SDMs are key tools to develop untruncated regional climate change forecasts of species distributions at fine resolution over restricted extents. While several N-SDM approaches were proposed, there ...

🆕 New paper: Spatially nested SDMs to overcome niche truncation, by Guisan et al.!

doi.org/10.1111/1365...

🆕New paper: Predicting current and future spatial patterns of nature’s contributions to people from species distribution models, by Dr. Pierre-Louis Rey and colleagues (many who are current or former ECOSPAT lab members!) doi.org/10.1016/j.ec...

🆕New paper: A model of mountain social-ecological systems to catalyze multi-actor collaborations toward sustainability, by Dr. Cristofari and colleagues.

Dès le 25 fév. 10 cours gratuits ouverts au public porteront sur le thème "Politique et environnement: entre information et désinformation". Rejoignez-nous pour comprendre les mécanismes d'information qui influencent les individus, les sociétés et les institutions. Infos👇
www.unil.ch/gse/fr/home/...

A nature tourism and citizen science alliance Biodiversity conservation relies on knowing where species are and thrive. Due to major knowledge gaps in the distribution of biodiversity across the globe,

🆕New paper: "A nature tourism and citizen science alliance" by a current PhD student, Caroline Martin, and colleagues. Check it out at doi.org/10.1093/bios... #openaccess

Climate change threatens amphibians and species representation within protected areas in tropical wetlands Our findings reveal the extensive impacts of climate change on a major semiaquatic group in the world's largest tropical wetland. Although the current PA network in the Pantanal and surroundings safe...

🆕 New paper: "Climate change threatens amphibians and species representation within protected areas in tropical wetlands" @jappliedecology.bsky.social by Matheus Neves et al. Read more here: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Looking forward to the @biology25.bsky.social conference next week in Lausanne @unil.bsky.social! Find the updated schedule below, and note that we can still accept late registrations to attend. Contact sdm-ch[@]unil.ch for more information.

Register here: wp.unil.ch/biology25/sa...

Reminder that there is one week left to submit an abstract to present at the SDM-CH session at Biology25!