>>Department of Ecological Modelling >> Personal homepage Thorsten Wiegand >>  Research

Main research interests

Spatially explicit population viability analysis (PVA) of animal populations

Reconciling large-scale conservation of endangered large carnivore populations with conflicting human activities

• A short description of the role of models in conservation of large carnivores

• Aims and steps of my research plan

Modeling (spatial) population dynamics of endangered species

• Endangered brown bears (Ursus arctos) in northern Spain (with Javier Naves)

• Expansion of brown bears (Ursus arctos) into the eastern Alps (with Felix Knauer)

• Conservation of the endangered Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) (Eloy Revilla)

• Scenarios for viable lynx (Lynx lynx) populations in Germany (Stephanie Schadt).

• Conservation Planning for the Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) (Jonathan Rhodes)

• Conservation of the Cantabrian Capercaille (Tetrao urogallus cantabricus) in northern Spain (Adan Abajo)

• Trading patches within metapopulations (Doug Bruggeman)

• Evaluating landscape connectivity for tiger  (Panthera tigris) in the Terai Arc landscape, India (K. Rajapandian)

Understanding the long-term dynamics of  plant communities 

The use of models in the long-term ecological research of semiarid areas

 

Modeling spatial and temporal dynamics of plant communities

• The semiarid shrublands in the Karoo, South Africa (with Sue Milton)

• The semiarid grasslands of Sourth Africa (with Klaus Kellner and Hennie Snyman)

• The grass-shrub steppe in Patagonia, Argentine  (Pablo Cipriotti, Martín Aguiar)

• The Festuca grassland in Patagonia, Argentine (Sandro Pütz, with José Paruelo)

• The Patagonian landscape-scale model (Sandro Pütz, with José Paruelo)

• Treeline patterns in the Spanish Pyrenees (with Chechu Camarero and Nadja Rüger)

• Poin-pattern analysis of tropical tree species (with Nimal and Savit Gunatilleke and Andreas Huth).

Integrating approaches of landscape ecology and population modeling for assessing the impact of landscape structure on population dynamics

• Finding the missing link between landscape structure and population dynamics (with Kirk Moloney)

• Relative effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on population dynamics (with Eloy Revilla and Kirk Moloney)

• Analyzing dispersal of large carnivores (Eloy Revilla)

• Modeling urban growth of mid-cities in Chile (with Gerardo Azócar)

Methods to adapt and analyze models optimally for ecological applications

• Pattern oriented modeling

• Pattern-oriented model adjustment and analysis

Spatial pattern analysis

• Point-pattern analysis using Ripley's K-function

• Point-pattern analysis using the O-ring statistic

• Programita, an user friendly software for point-pattern analysis