Dr. Daniel Scherrer

Fonction

collaborateur scientifique

Dynamique forestière

Ressources et gestion forestières

Écologie de la régénération des plantes

Contact

daniel.scherrer(at)wslto make life hard for spam bots.ch

+41 44 739 29 37+41 44 739 29 37

Institut fédéral de recherches sur la forêt, la neige et le paysage WSL
Zürcherstrasse 111
8903 Birmensdorf

Site

Birmensdorf Bi HL D 25

Education

04.2007 – 07.2010	PhD at the botanical institute of the University of Basel, Switzerland "Infra-red thermometry in alpine terrain", supervised by Prof. Ch. Körner (Project Ecochange)
10.2005 – 03.2007	Master of Science in Ecology, University of Basel, Switzerland "Local extinction risk, colonisation probability and spatial spread of the alpine Geum reptans on a glacier foreland in the Swiss Alps", supervised by Prof. J. Stöcklin
10.2002 –09.2005	Bachelor of Science in organismic biology, University of Basel, Switzerland

Professional experience

since 01.2019	Scientific staff member at the WSL (Group Disturbance Ecology) Swiss-wide spatial and temporal modelling of forest associations and forest recruitment. (Vorprojekt zu Veg2021)
10.2013 – 09.2018	PostDoc / Junior Lecturer at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland (Group ECOSPAT) Scientific research in the fields of biogeography, community ecology and spatial modelling. Teaching of courses at graduate and undergraduate level.
07.2011 – 09.2013	Travelling the World (AUS, NZ, SE-Asia, Russia, Mongolia) Practical experience with different ecosystems and improvement of language skills.
05.2011 –06.2011	Civil service at the Museum-BL, Switzerland Development and implementation of a taxonomic backbone for the natural history collection of the museum.
08.2010 –04.2011	PostDoc at the University of Basel, Switzerland Drought-sensitivity of deciduous tree species. (Projekt MatchTree).
04.2007 –07.2010	PhD Candidate at the University of Basel, Switzerland Infra-red thermometry of alpine and arctic landscapes (Projekt Ecochange).

Reseach interests

I am an ecologist working in multiple fields including ecophysiology, bioinformatics and climatology. During my PhD I studied the influence of micro-climate on the spatial distribution of artic/alpine plant species and their expected reaction to global warming. Further research projects included the effect of drought on deciduous tree species, various technical as well as applied aspects of species distribution modelling and community ecology.

Reseachgate Google Scholar ReseacherID: K-3416-2013

FURTHER INFORMATION

Projects

FireSwitch

The projected increase in the frequency of forest fires due to climate change underlines the need for long-term studies on tree regeneration and succession after forest fires. These data serve as a basis for adaptive management and intervention plans.

PhenoMast

This project aims to integrate the recording of standardized mast observation into existing phenology networks (e.g. PhaenoNet, Phenowald, PhenoRanger) and field surveys. The recorded data will be made publicly available on the already established platform of MastWeb hosted at WSL.

Effects of forest attributes on biodiversity

This project investigates the biotic communities and food webs between ground vegetation and tree canopies, contributing to a better understanding of the three-dimensional relationship between forest structure and physiology, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions.

SOLID - SOiL Information for species Distribution modelling

In this project, we are investigating the extent to which the spatial predictability of forest plant species and fungi can be improved by using high-resolution soil maps. In addition, we analyse how climate change affects the distribution of different species and what role soil plays in this.

MastWeb 2.0: Mobile friendliness and interactive analysis tool to assess and visualize annual tree fecundity levels

New and improved functionality for the mastweb.ch platform to collect, distribute, visualise and evaluate data on tree fecundity levels in Swiss forests.

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Publications WSL

Scherrer, D.; Baltensweiler, A.; Bürgi, M.; Fischer, C.; Stadelmann, G.; Wohlgemuth, T., 2023: Low naturalness of Swiss broadleaf forests increases their susceptibility to disturbances. Forest Ecology and Management, 532: 120827 (8 pp.). doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2023.120827

Scherrer, D.; Bürgi, M.; Gessler, A.; Kessler, M.; Nobis, M.P.; Wohlgemuth, T., 2022: Abundance changes of neophytes and native species indicate a thermophilisation and eutrophisation of the Swiss flora during the 20th century. Ecological Indicators, 135: 108558 (11 pp.). doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108558

Bose, A.K.; Rigling, A.; Gessler, A.; Hagedorn, F.; Brunner, I.; Feichtinger, L.; Bigler, C.; Egli, S.; Etzold, S.; Gossner, M.M.; Guidi, C.; Lévesque, M.; Meusburger, K.; Peter, M.; Saurer, M.; Scherrer, D.; Schleppi, P.; Schönbeck, L.; Vogel, M.E.; ... Schaub, M., 2022: Lessons learned from a long‐term irrigation experiment in a dry Scots pine forest: impacts on traits and functioning. Ecological Monographs, 92, 2: e1507 (18 pp.). doi: 10.1002/ecm.1507

Scherrer, D.; Ascoli, D.; Conedera, M.; Fischer, C.; Maringer, J.; Moser, B.; Nikolova, P.S.; Rigling, A.; Wohlgemuth, T., 2022: Canopy disturbances catalyse tree species shifts in Swiss Forests. Ecosystems, 25: 199-214. doi: 10.1007/s10021-021-00649-1

Bader, M.K.-F.; Scherrer, D.; Zweifel, R.; Körner, C., 2022: Less pronounced drought responses in ring-porous than in diffuse-porous temperate tree species. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 327: 109184 (14 pp.). doi: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.109184

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Further scientific publications

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Magazine article and brochures

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Further Publications

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Additional Publications

2019	Scherrer, D. & Guisan, A. (2019) Ecological indicator values reveal missing predictors of species distributions. Scientific Reports, 9, 3061 Scherrer, D., Mod, H.K., Pottier, J., Litsios-Dubuis, A., Pellisser, L., P., V., Götzenberger, L., Zobel, M. & Guisan, A. (2019) Disentangling the processes driving plant assemblages in mountain grasslands across spatial scales and environmental gradients. Journal of Ecology, 107, 265-278 Scherrer, D., Christe, P. & Guisan, A. (2019) Modelling habitat suitability of bats in the Prealps: from data collection to ensemble of small models, Diversity and Distributions, 25, 770-782 Fernandes, R.F., Scherrer, D. & Guisan, A. (2019) Effects of simulated observation errors on the performance of species distribution models. Diversity and Distributions, 25, 400-413
2018	Scherrer, D., D'Amen, M., Mateo, R.G., Fernandes, R.F. & Guisan, A. (2018) How to best threshold and validate stacked species assemblages? Community optimisation might hold the answer. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 9, 2155-2166 Juha, A., Scherrer, D., Lenoir, J., Guisan, A. & Luoto, M. (2018) Biogeophysical controls on soil-atmosphere thermal differences: implications on warming Arctic ecosystems. Environmental Research Letters, 13, 074003 Fernandes, R.F., Scherrer, D. & Guisan, A. (2018) How much should one sample to accurately predict the distribution of species assemblages? A test with virtual species. Ecological Informatics, 48
2017	Scherrer, D., Massy, S., Meier, S., Vittoz, P. & Guisan, A. (2017) Assessing and predicting shifts in mountain forest composition across 25 years of climate change. Diversity and Distributions, 23, 517-528. Scherrer, D., Stoll, P. & Stöcklin, J. (2017) Colonization dynamics of a clonal pioneer plant on a glacier foreland inferred from spatially explicit and size-structured matrix models. Folia Geobotanica, 52, 353-366.
2016	Scherrer, D., Mod, H.K., Luoto, M. & Guisan, A. (2016) What we use is not what we know: environmental predictors in plant distribution models. Journal of Vegetation Science, 27, 1308-1322.
2011	Scherrer, D. & Körner, C. (2011) Topographically controlled thermal-habitat differentiation buffers alpine plant diversity against climate warming. Journal of Biogeography, 38, 406-416. Scherrer, D., Bader, M.K.-F. & Körner, C. (2011) Drought-sensitivity ranking of deciduous tree species based on thermal imaging of forest canopies. Agricultural and forest meteorology, 151, 1632-1640. Scherrer, D., Schmid, S. & Körner, C. (2011) Elevational species shifts in a warmer climate are overestimated when based on weather station data. International Journal of Biometeorology, 55, 645-654. Scherrer, D., de Witte, L.C. & Stöcklin, J. (2011) Genet longevity and population age structure of the clonal pioneer species Geum reptans based on demographic field data and projection matrix modelling. Preslia, 83, 371-386.
2010	Scherrer, D. & Körner, C. (2010) Infra-red thermometry of alpine landscapes challenges climatic warming projections. Global Change Biology, 16, 2602-2613.