Peer-reviewed publications listed on Google Scholar. Please send me an email to request pdfs.
I am curious and love how science leads to discovery and wonderment. I do not always feel comfortable with modern scientific culture, with its emphasis on quantity (grant money, number of publications, h-indices) that too often come at the expense of novel ideas, confirmatory research and other important tasks (teaching, mentoring, outreach). I aim to conduct science with a low carbon footprint and since 2010 conduct my science primarily in the Geneva region, where we use interdisciplinary approaches and spatially explicit tools to investigate the diversity of nature-based values within a society.
I currently am interested in three areas of research:
Describing the biological consequence of anthropogenic change
We focus on the consequences of direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss. Early work described how human activities can disrupt behavioural decision-making rules and lead species into so-called evolutionary traps. More recent work quantifies the contributions of introduced trees to local biodiversity metrics and ecosystem services, quantifies the spatial characteristics of native and introduced plants in Switzerland and explores the broader consequences of rapid climate change on global conservation strategies. A scientific contribution in this area has been to show that sudden environmental change can lead to evolutionary traps but also that some species are pre-adapted or resilient to novel selective regimes.
Key papers include:
Schlaepfer, M. A., Runge, M. C., & Sherman, P. W. (2002). Ecological and evolutionary traps. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 17, 474–480. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(02)02580-6
Schlaepfer, M. A., Sherman, P. W., Blossey, B., & Runge, M. C. (2005). Introduced species as evolutionary traps. Ecology Letters, 8, 241–246. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00730.x
Schlaepfer, M. A., Guinaudeau, B. P., Martin, P., & Wyler, N. (2020). Quantifying the contributions of native and non-native trees to a city’s biodiversity and ecosystem services. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 56, 126861. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2020.126861
Schlaepfer, M. A., & Lawler, J. J. (2022). Conserving biodiversity in the face of rapid climate change requires a shift in priorities. WIREs Climate Change, e798. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.798
Integrating nature-based values into policy
Dr. Schlaepfer co-founded in 2017 an inter-institutional network GE-21 (www.ge21.ch) that brings together government employees and researchers to identify novel ways for promoting nature-based values (biodiversity and ecosystem services) within the region of Geneva. This network provides an exchange channel between the state of Geneva and research institutions. Such novel inter-institutional gouvernance structures favour the emergence of biodiversity-friendly initiatives into public policy. Within this network, we initiated a project called “OUR-TREES” in which different ecosystem services provided by trees to urban residents of Geneva were quantified. This work highlighted the high species richness associated with urban trees but also the role of trees and nature-based solutions for the reduction of heat-island phenomena. Importantly, the OUR-TREES project revealed how cocreation approaches not only enrich scientific knowledge but also improve political acceptance. As a result of this project the canton of Geneva has committed to increasing tree canopy cover from 21 to 30% by 2070 (budget 40 millions CHF approved in 2024). In addition, the canton of Geneva requested that the group GE-21 lead a participatory process to identify a green-infrastructure as a basis for future conservation measures and land-planning decisions and to develop a simplified approach for integrating biodiversity- and nature-based values across departments of the Canton (ongoing). Our major achievement in this area has been the ability to mainstream scientific knowledge through interdisciplinary and participatory approaches.
Key papers include:
Honeck, E., Moilanen, A., Guinaudeau, B., Wyler, N., Schlaepfer, A. M., Martin, P., Sanguet, A., Urbina, L., von Arx, B., Massy, J., Fischer, C., & Lehmann, A. (2020). Implementing Green Infrastructure for the Spatial Planning of Peri-Urban Areas in Geneva, Switzerland. Sustainability, 12(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041387
Honeck, E., Gallagher, L., von Arx, B., Lehmann, A., Wyler, N., Villarrubia, O., Guinaudeau, B., & Schlaepfer, M. A. (2021). Integrating ecosystem services into policymaking – A case study on the use of boundary organizations. Ecosystem Services, 49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2021.101286
Exploring the diversity of values associated with nature and introduced species
Biodiversity is described and valued for itself and for its contributions to human well-being, planetary limits and sustainability. Dr. Schlaepfer was a precursor in identifying the diversity of values associated with introduced species and analysing the value-systems embedded within biodiversity indicators. As a result, he was invited to be a Lead Author to the IPBES Assessment for Europe and Central Asia, and as a Contributing Author to the IPBES Values Assessment. Thus, he has contributed for +15 years to the discussions and debates about how to investigate and account for the diversity of nature-based values, including those related to introduced species.
Key papers include:
Harrison, P. A., et al. (2018). Chapter 5: Current and future interactions between nature and society. In M. Rounsevell, M. Fischer, A. Torre-Marin Rando, & A. Mader (Eds.), The IPBES regional assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services for Europe and Central Asia. (pp. 571–658). Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. https://www.ipbes.net/assessment-reports/eca
Schlaepfer, M. A., Sax, D. F., & Olden, J. D. (2011). The potential conservation value of non-native species. Conservation Biology, 25(3), 428–437. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01646.x
Schlaepfer, M. A. (2018). Do non-native species contribute to biodiversity? PLoS Biol, 16(4), e2005568. 10.1371/journal.pbio.2005568
Sax, D. F., Schlaepfer, M. A., & Olden, J. D. (2022). Valuing the contributions of non-native species to people and nature. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2022.08.005