Sensitivity of habitat network models to changes in maximum dispersal distance.

Predicting the presence or absence (occurrence-state) of species in a certain area is highly important for conservation. Occurrence-state can be assessed by network models that take suitable habitat patches as nodes, connected by potential dispersal of species. To determine connections, a connectivity threshold is set at the species' maximum dispersal distance.

Validating Farmland Biodiversity Life Cycle Assessment at the Landscape Scale.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) aims at providing standardized evaluations of processes involving resource use, human health, and environmental consequences. Currently, spatial dependencies are most often neglected, though they are essential for impact categories like biodiversity. The "Swiss Agricultural Life Cycle Assessment for Biodiversity (SALCA-BD)" evaluates the impact of agricultural field management on 11 indicator species groups.

Assessing the influence of the amount of reachable habitat on genetic structure using landscape and genetic graphs.

Genetic structure, i.e. intra-population genetic diversity and inter-population genetic differentiation, is influenced by the amount and spatial configuration of habitat.

Vulnerability of ski tourism towards internal climate variability and climate change in the Swiss Alps.

Increasing temperatures and snow scarcity pose a serious threat to ski tourism. While the impacts of climate change on ski tourism have been elaborated extensively, little is known so far on the vulnerability of winter tourism towards both internal climate variability and climate change. We use a 50-member single model large ensemble from a regional climate model to drive the physically-based snowpack model SNOWPACK for eight stations across the Swiss Alps to model daily snow depth, incorporating both natural snow conditions and including technical snow production.

Predicting species occurrences with habitat network models.

Biodiversity conservation requires modeling tools capable of predicting the presence or absence (i.e., occurrence-state) of species in habitat patches.

Consequences of population topology for studying gene flow using link-based landscape genetic methods.

Many landscape genetic studies aim to determine the effect of landscape on gene flow between populations. These studies frequently employ link-based methods that relate pairwise measures of historical gene flow to measures of the landscape and the geographical distance between populations. However, apart from landscape and distance, there is a third important factor that can influence historical gene flow, that is, population topology (i.

An improved neutral landscape model for recreating real landscapes and generating landscape series for spatial ecological simulations.

Many studies have assessed the effect of landscape patterns on spatial ecological processes by simulating these processes in computer-generated landscapes with varying composition and configuration. To generate such landscapes, various neutral landscape models have been developed. However, the limited set of landscape-level pattern variables included in these models is often inadequate to generate landscapes that reflect real landscapes.

Approaches to integrating indicators into 3D landscape visualisations and their benefits for participative planning situations.

In discussing issues of landscape change, the complex relationships in the landscape have to be assessed. In participative planning processes, 3D visualisations have a high potential as an aid in understanding and communicating characteristics of landscape conditions by integrating visual and non-visual landscape information. Unclear is, which design and how much interactivity is required for an indicator visualisation that would suit stakeholders best in workshop situations.