News & Events

Congratulations to the Biochange Students who have all successfully defended their PhD theses!

Esther Frei and Philippe Matter both defended their PhD theses on the 4th of March in a busy and happy day for the Ecosystem Management group. Thomas Hahn successfully defended his PhD thesis one week later on the 12th of March.

Esther successfully defended her PhD thesis, titled "Adaptation and Plasticity of Plant Populations in the Swiss Alps in the Context of Climate Change", on the 4th of March 2013. Esther gave an excellent presentation of her work and was examined by Prof. Bernhard Schmid and Dr. Irène Till-Bottraud. We had coffee and cake after her successful defense!

Philippe successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “ Estimating contemporary pollen-flow and associated outbreeding effects on herbaceous plant populations along altitudinal gradients”, on the 4th of March 2013. Phil’s thesis was examined by Dr. Juan-Jose Robledo-Arnuncio, and Prof. Dr. Markus Fischer. We enjoyed and excellent presentation and an equally good apero after the event.

Thomas successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “Low impact of altitude and landscape composition on patterns of genetic variation in semi-dry grassland plants”, on the 4th of March 2013.Thomas’s thesis was examined by Prof. Rolf Holderegger and Dr. Lutz Eckstein, co-examiner. After an excellent presentation Thomas made a sterling performance answering a wide range of questions from the examiners... and riding his bike!

Welcome to Chue Poh!

We welcome Chue Poh Tan to the Ecosystem Management Group. Chue Poh is keen to estimate above-ground biomass using remotely sensed data in tropical forest. She will work closely with Jaboury Ghazoul, Lian Pin Koh, Chris Kettle and James Smith. The project will provide insights on the relationship of ecological and environmental variables on AGB distribution, and will contribute to the development of AGB estimation using high resolution LiDAR and low-cost UAVs, both of which are necessary for the effective implementation of REDD+.

Sascha has submitted!

Congratulations to Sascha Ismail who Submitted his PhD for Examination entitled “Fragmentation genetics of tropical tree species in an agro-forest landscape” His PhD defence will be held on the 11th April 2013.

Welcome to Emma Morgan

We welcome Emma Morgan to the Ecosystem Management Group who is already out in the field starting to investigate “Demographic and genetic processes underlying regeneration in the endangered Seychelles palm Lodoicea maldivica (coco de mer), supervised by Dr. Chris Kettle, Prof. Peter Edwards (Plant Ecology Group) and Dr. Christopher Kaiser-Bunbury (Aarhus University. The project will apply detailed field ecological surveys and molecular ecological methods to investigate pollen dispersal, dioecy and restricted seed dispersal, in shaping the patterns of demographic structure and genetic diversity in naturally regenerating stands of this species.

Robi Bagchi starting in the EM Group!!!

We welcome Robert Bagchi, a new Oberassistent in the Ecosystem Management Group since November 2012. Robi is interested in the mechanisms that maintain species coexistence and diversity in tropical ecosystems and how human activity might disturb these mechanisms. He will be working closely with Jaboury and Chris on these topics in both Borneo and India. He joins ETH after doing post-doctoral work on the importance of biodiversity for ecosystem functioning (at the University of Zurich), the role of fungal pathogens on maintaining plant diversity in tropical forests (at University of Oxford) and the potential effects of climate change on bird species conservation (at Durham University).

Readers in Environmental Thinking: Course Announcement

Its fifty years since Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, 40 years since the Meadows' published Limits to Growth, and 100 years since the birth of David Brower of Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth fame. How many of us know of these people, and how many of us are aware of their immense legacy for the environmental movement, and environmental science? Now is a great time to learn more about these seminal characters and their work by joining the Readers in Environmental Thinking course (Fridays 15:00 - 17:00, CHN G42). All are welcome - just send Jaboury an email to register your interest.

He's done it again!

Well done Sascha, for winning (again) the best presentation prize at the ITES r-Day (24 September 2012).

Welcome, Claude Garcia

Claude Garcia joined the Institute on 1 August 2012 as the leader of the Forest Management and Development group which is affiliated to the Ecosystem Management professorship. Claude's position is co-funded with CIRAD, and his role, among other things, will be to facilitate collaboration between ETH Zurich and CIRAD, and in so doing build the FORDEV group into a new successful unit.

Good luck!!

Until we find a better photograph of Claude, this will have to do...

New Grants

Two new projects will start at the end of 2012/beginning of 2013.

Jaboury Ghazoul, Claude Garcia and Christoph Küffer have been awarded grant funded by the Mercator Foundation through the ETH World Food Systems Centre on the ecological functions provided by trees in Indian coffee agroforest systems. The work represents a continuation of the long collaboration with Prof. Kushalappa and Prof. Uma Shaanker in India, and also involves Dr Smitha Krishnan (former PhD student) as project manager. We are pleased that Maike Nesper has accepted the PhD position and will start in November 2012.

Chris Kettle and Peter Edwards were awarded an ETH grant to work on the reproductive biology of Coco-de-Mer in the Seychelles. Emma Morgan will start as a PhD student on this project in early 2013.

Society for Conservation Biology Asia conference, Bangalore, August 2012

Congratulations to Sascha Ismail who won the best speaker award at the SCB-Asia conference held in Bangalore (7th-10th Aug 2012)! He presented on Identifying conservation priorities for an endangered tropical tree in complex forest agro-ecosystem.

Congratulations Dr. Firesenai Sereke!

Congratulations to Firesenai Sereke who successfully defended his PhD thesis " TRANSDISCIPLINARY DEVELOPMENT OF AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS" on the 22nd of December. We wish Senai all the best for the future.

Congratulations Dr. Aline Finger!

Congratulations to Dr. Charlotte Klank!

VIPCA MolEcol Conference in Vienna

Congratulations to Phil who won the best presentation award for his talk “Historical and Contemporary Gene-Flow along an Altitudinal Gradient in Trifolium montanum” presented at the Vienna International conference on Molecular Ecology 4-7th February 2012.

Jaboury's sabbatical in Down Under!

in August, Jaboury returned from sabbatical in Cairns, Australia, where he interfered in various field projects and invited himself on field excursions. These included visits to populations of the amazing Nepenthes mirabilis pitcher plants, and trips to study lianas in rainforest fragments on the Atherton Tablelands with Mason Campbell and Bill Laurance, and where he came face to face (literally) with tree kangaroos and pademelons. He also tried to figure out the reproductive biology of Davidson’s plum (Davidsonia pruriens), an edible fruit native to eastern Australia. Back at James Cook University he had fun contributing to the Masters course in Development Practice run by Jeff Sayer and Intu Boedhihartono. The weekends were spent on camping trips to explore the magnificent Agathis trees, the weird figs and banksias, and the svelte eucalypts. Oh yes, and he made some progress with his dipterocarp book.

Congratulations to Dr. Born!

Congratulations to Dr. Hennig and Dr. Krishnan!

Congratulations to both Ernest Hennig and Smitha Krishnan for their successful completion of their PhD studies! Ernest passed his doctorate exam on his thesis entitled 'Plant Diversity Effects on Plant-Pollinator Interactions in Urban and Agricultural Settings', while Smitha completed her doctoral thesis entitled 'Pollinator services and coffee production in a fragmented landscape mosaic’. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors and to continue their good work on saving bees around the world!

New Doctor title!

Recent grants

Andrea R. Pluess has been awarded a research grant of the „Fonds zur Förderung der forstlichen Forschung“ (ETH) titled “Adaptive molecular variation in Fagus sylvatica across Switzerland”. This research will be done in collaboration with Dr. P. Brang and C. Sperisen (WSL) and Dr. G.G. Vendramin (Plant Genetics Institute, Division of Florence, Polo Scientifico CNR, Sesto Fiorentino, Italia).

John Garcia-Ulloa, Lian Pin Koh, and Jaboury Ghazoul have been awarded a Mercator Foundation research grant titled Comprehensive trade-off analysis of REDD+ implementation. This award will support John to do his PhD on this topic over the next three years.

Lian Pin Koh has been awarded an ETH North-South Centre research grant titled "Environmental iTools: Mobile Applications for Land-Use Decision Support in Developing Countries". With this grant, Lian Pin will work with software programmers to develop his models and decision-support tools into applications for mobile devices such as the iphone and ipad.

More news...

Lian Pin Koh was awarded an SNSF Assistant Professorship and has now established his own group of Applied Ecology and Conservation within the department.

Chris Kettle joined the editorial boards of Biotropica and Plant Ecology & Diversity.

Chris and Lian Pin recently signed a publishing agreement to put together a book on Global forest Fragmentation.