Pilot study for monitoring genetic diversity in Switzerland

ETH-News article about the pilot study
ETH-News interviewed project manager Martin C. Fischer for an article about the genetic diversity monitoring pilot study, giving a comprehensive overview of the project and its aims as well as interesting insights to preliminary results: link to the article.
Publication: monitoring of genetic diversity takes shape
The latest issue of HOTSPOT magazine focuses on biodiversity monitoring and presents ongoing and new projects, programs and technologies. Our pilot study is represented with an article about our work and about the challenges of monitoring genetic diversity. HOTSPOT magazine is published in German and French and can be freely downloaded from scnat. Short link …
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Publication: Selecting species and populations for monitoring of genetic diversity
A new IUCN manual guides through the decision-making and evaluation processes involved in designing a genetic diversity monitoring programme and identifying the most appropriate species or populations. The guidance document is aimed at conservation practitioners and includes several case studies, including our pilot study for genetic monitoring in Switzerland. Link to the publication: https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2022.07.en
Successful sampling strategy
With the supplementary sampling of Melitaea diamina, the 2022 field season was successfully completed. The collected samples of the five species are distributed – according to their habitats – over the whole of Switzerland and all biogeographical regions. The sampling includes more than 1200 individuals from 158 populations. The specifically developed sampling strategy (proportional stratified …
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Genetic Diversity Monitoring Workshop 2023 in Zurich
Publication: Bringing together approaches to reporting on within species genetic diversity
In the new article in the Journal of Applied Ecology, our pilot study for a monitoring of genetic diversity has been compared with and related to other approaches to reporting on within species genetic diversity. The publication shows the international importance of a monitoring of genetic diversity. The publication is available via this link in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Supplementary sampling 2022
After the largely successful sampling of all five selected species in 2021, the missing false heath fritillary, Melitaea diamina, populations will be sampled this year. In addition, 200 contemporary populations of Hare’s-tail cottongrass, Eriophorum vaginatum, will be sampled for retrospective monitoring of genetic diversity. Where possible, these will be collected from similar places as the …
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Results sampling 2021
Sampling of the five species was fairly successful despite a wet and cold spring and a gloomy summer. At the beginning of April 2021, the teams of the Swiss Ornithological Institute started sampling the Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella). They sampled about 120 bird over a two-month period. The anticipated number of 150 samples was not reached …
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Stakeholder manuscript published
The Swiss-wide stakeholder survey, which was conducted as part of the feasibility study for a genetic diversity monitoring, has now been published in the journal Conservation Genetics! The paper is publicly accessible via this link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10592-021-01379-6
Retrospective Analyses
For the retrospective analysis, more than 700 voucher specimens were found for the Hare’s-tail cottongrass and more than 1,000 for the False heath fritillary in collections in Switzerland – from Geneva to Basel. Where not already done, each specimen was entered into a database and the location was recorded and georeferenced using the original label. …
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