As a passionate ornithologist and entomologist, I focus my work on the conservation of different species and habitats in Switzerland. For my master thesis I studied the saproxylic beetles and fungi communities in Swiss forest reserves of the Alps, in relation with forest structures like tree-related microhabitats.
As a PhD student, I am now working on the conservation of high-alpine alluvial habitats, released by melting glaciers in the Swiss Alps. New habitats are freed and host a unique but poorly known biodiversity. At the same time, these melting glaciers are of high interest in terms of energy production as they often have a high hydropower potential and several projects of reelevating or building of dams are already planned. In my project, I combine spatially explicit modelling of the actual and future (2050 and 2100) distribution of multiple species at the national scale with decision making tools. In addition, I collect fieldwork data on several glacier forelands of the Swiss Alps to study ecological preferences of the species at a microhabitat scale. I concentrate on the fauna of these new emerging habitats with a special focus on carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae), wandering spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) and wild bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae). These two complementary approaches should allow for better-informed decision-making processes and providing management recommendations in the cases where management is done.
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gilles-Hauser
