Biographical Information about Alexandre Hirzel

Alexandre Hirzel is Junior Group Leader in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2001, he received his PhD in spatial ecology and population dynamics from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, where he developed the first version of the software Biomapper and applied it to the management of alpine Ibex populations.

In 2002, he made a first post-doc at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where he developed new habitat modelling approaches and applied them to the case of bearded Vulture reintroduction. In 2003, Alexandre moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA, where he made a second post-doc in the department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, about spatial aspects of consumer-resource dynamics.

In 2004, he was back in Switzerland, parting his time between the universities of Lausanne and Bern. In Bern, he developed a new method to evaluate prediction accuracy of habitat models, while in Lausanne he addressed the link between metapopulation dynamics and population genetics.

Alexandre’s research domains are spatial ecology, population dynamics and evolution of niche and dispersal. Since his PhD, he keeps adding new modules to Biomapper and applying them to conservation cases.