Spatial Ecology & Remote Sensing
Our research interests focus on the role of vegetation, its composition and structure, on land surface processes and climate feedbacks. Radiation is one of the key factors linking land surface and atmospheric processes. At the same time, radiation is a limiting growth factor of vegetation, be it in the short wavelength range as photosynthetically active radiation or in the longwave domain as temperature. Our goal is to contribute to ecological and climatological questions through combined field and satellite radiation measurements, radiative modelling, and ecological experimental approaches, from the plant to the landscape scale.
The emphasis lies on continuous process-related ecosystem variables (e.g. albedo, plant traits), going beyond traditional land cover types with spatially discrete class boundaries. Our focus is on vegetation dynamics, biodiversity and related permafrost-vegetation-atmosphere processes in Northeastern Siberian tundra.
Head of Group: Dr. Gabriela Schaepman-Strub
News
- 26/07/18 - Back from field work I notice that our Science Advances article on the accelerating carbon cycle is published - check it out here
- 26/07/18 - Field work season in Kytalyk coming to an end - a windy and cold campaign this year, but successful. Thanks to all students for a great and productive time out there! Pictures to follow soon.
- 15/06/18 - Excited to announce a PhD (PDF, 189 KB) and a Postdoc (PDF, 184 KB) position on Arctic energy fluxes! Applications very welcome until 12 August.
- 12/06/18 - Stanislav Ksenofontov will defend his PhD thesis on social-ecological systems in Arctic Yakutia on 27 June!
- 03/05/18 - Gabriela will travel to Greenland to explore collaboration opportunities with the planned Science Hub. UZH news article
- 26/03/18 - Congratulations to our former UWW MSc student Dominique Weber! Our paper in Ecological Indicators on 'Predicting habitat quality of protected dry grasslands using Landsat NDVI phenology' is accepted! free access for 50 days
- 21/03/18 - Gabriela is now a member of the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) working group, representing Switzerland as an observer of the Arctic Council.
- 05/03/18 - Welcome to Elena Plekhanova, our groups new PhD student!
- 05/03/18 - Join us at the Swiss Polar Day on 4 April 2018.
- 26/01/18 - We warmly welcome our new group member, Annabelle Constance, starting her PhD on 1 February 2018!
- 26/01/18 - Looking forward to working on the tundra ecosystem with our new MSc students, Tamara Link and Ariane Goerens!
- 26/01/18 - Gabriela is now an Editorial Advisor of the Board of Polar Record.
- 10/01/18 - Our article on the fishing resources in the Yakutian Arctic is listed as Polar Record Editor's pick https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/polar-record/editor-s-picks
- 08/01/18 - Stas Ksenofontov has received an IASC fellowship 2018. He was one out of only 5 recipients from 135 applicants! Congratulations, Stas!
- 30/11/17 - Our two MSc students, Julia Cerutti (Aldabra coral bleaching - winners and loosers) and Simone Stünzi (Climate forcing through albedo due to forest loss in Yakutia) will present their work on 13 December!
- 25/09/17 - Welcome to our new PhD student Frederik Baumgarten! He will work on the new tundra precipitation and trait experiment of the URPP GCB Feedbacks between biodiversity and climate through plant traits and light interaction
- 23/08/17 - Congratulations to Maitane for her dendro article! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1125786517300176
- 08/06/17 - Gabriela contributed to a paper on validation of earth observation data across communities. Check it out! https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017RG000562/full
- 10/05/17 - Congratulations to Paul for his paper on 'Giant tortoise habitats under increasing drought conditions on Aldabra Atoll'! https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.05.029
- 09/05/17 Stas article in Polar Record is out! 'To fish or not to fish? fishing communities of Arctic Yakutia in the face of environmental change and political transformations' https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247417000134
- 28/02/17 - Congratulations to Inge Juszak for her article on drivers of shortwave radiation in the tundra! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425717300792
- Welcome to Simone Stünzi and Julia Cerutti, our two new MSc student members of the research group!
- Congratulations to Dominique Weber for the phenology award of the Swiss Academy of Sciences for his MSc thesis on phenology of Swiss dry grasslands!
- Gabriela received an award by the parliament of the Republic of Sacha (Yakutia) for her contributions to climate and biodiversity research! https://www.mnf.uzh.ch/de/news/Republic-of-Sacha-honors-ecologist-Dr.-Gabriela-Schaepman-Strub.html
- Coverage of Beat Glogger's talk show with Gabriela now online and printed in many regional newspapers in Switzerland https://wissenschaft-persoenlich.ch/oktober-2016-gabriela-schaepman-strub/
- Visit our blog on the field work during summer 2013 in Siberia!
Research Themes:
- Biodiversity and climate interactions in Arctic tundra ecosystems
- Arctic shrub encroachment and its feedbacks to permafrost and climate
- Land surface reflectance and albedo definitions and measurements
- Validation of satellite-inferred land products
- Spatial patterns of vegetation and animal movement