Current research
I am an applied ecologist with a strong interest in biological control, invasion biology and nature conservation. The central question of my research is when are populations regulated and what are the conditions under which populations escape such regulation. These questions are not only relevant for advancing our understanding of many ecological processes, but also have a huge application potential.
My group uses a wide array of systems and methods to answer these questions. The majority of our work is done on herbivorous insects and the organisms they interact with (plants, predators, parasitoids), but we also work on invasive mammals and even on plant pathogenic fungi. More details on specific projects can be found on our research webpage
Curriculum vitae
| 2007-present | Group leader, University of Fribourg (CH) |
| 2003-2007 |
Group leader, University of Bern (CH) |
| 2003 |
Habilitation, University of Bern (CH) |
| 1996 |
PhD, Swiss Federal
Institute of
Technology (ETH) Zurich |
| 1993 |
MSc, University of
Kiel (D) |
| 1991-1993 |
Project
entomologist, CABI
Delémont (CH) |
Representative recent publications (full list with pdfs)
Bacon
SJ, Bacher S, Aebi A (2012) Gaps in border controls are related to
quarantine
alien insect invasions in Europe.
PLoSOne 7(10), e47689 . doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0047689
Leung
B, Roura-Pascual N, Bacher S, Heikkilä J, Brotons L, Burgman MA,
Dehnen-Schmutz K, Essl F, Hulme PE, Richardson DM, Sol D, Vilà M
(2012) TEASIng
apart alien
species risk assessments: a
framework for best practices. Ecology Letters 15, 1475-1493. doi: 10.1111/ele.12003
Kumschick
S,
Bacher
S,
Blackburn
T
(2012) What
determines the
impact of alien birds and mammals in Europe? Biological
Invasions, online
early. doi:
10.1007/s10530-012-0326-6
Pluess T, Cannon R, Jarošík V, Pergl J, Pyšek P, Bacher S, (2012) When are eradication campaigns successful? A test of common assumptions. Biological Invasions, 14:1365–1378 doi: 10.1007/s10530-011-0160-2
Bacher S (2012) Still not enough taxonomists. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 27: 65-66. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.11.003
Brechbühl R, Casas J, Bacher S (2011) Diet choice of a predator in the wild: overabundance of prey and missed opportunities along the prey capture sequence. Ecosphere, 2(12):133. doi:10.1890/ES11-00323.1
Blackburn
TM,
Pyšek
P,
Bacher
S,
Carlton JT,
Duncan RP, Jarošík V, Wilson JRU and Richardson DM (2011) A
proposed unified
framework for biological invasions. Trends
in
Ecology
and
Evolution 26:
333–339. doi:
10.1016/j.tree.2011.03.023.
Pyšek P, Jarošík V, Hulme PH, Kühn I, Wild J, Arianoutsou M, Bacher S, Chiron F, Didžiulis V, Essl F, Genovesi P, Gherardi F, Hejda M, Kark S, Lambdon PW, Desprez-Loustau ML, Nentwig W, Pergl J, Poboljšaj K, Rabitsch W, Roques A, Roy DB, Shirley S, Solarz W, Vilà M, Winter M (2010) Disentangling the role of environmental and human pressures on biological invasions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, 12157–12162.
Brechbühl
R,
Casas
J,
Bacher
S
(2010)
Ineffective
crypsis
in
a
crab
spider:
a
prey
community
perspective.
Proceedings
of the
Royal Society of London,
Series B – Biological
Sciences
277,
739-746.
featured in 
and 
Bruggisser
O,
Schmidt-Entling
MH,
Bacher
S
(2010) Effects of vineyard
management on biodiversity at three trophic levels. Biological
Conservation 143,
1521-1528
Nentwig W, Kühnel E, Bacher S (2010) A Generic Impact-Scoring System Applied to Alien Mammals in Europe. Conservation Biology 24, 302-311.
Sol D, Bacher S, Reader SM & Lefebvre L (2008) Brain size predicts the success of mammal species introduced into novel environments. American Naturalist S172, S63-S71.
Hulme PE, Bacher S, Kenis M, Klotz, S, Kühn I, Minchin D, Nentwig W, Olenin S, Panov V, Pergl J, Pyšek P, Roques A, Sol D, Solarz W, Vilà, M (2008) Grasping at the routes of biological invasions: a framework for integrating pathways into policy. Journal of Applied Ecology 45, 403–414.
Nentwig W., Bacher S., Brandl R. (2011) Ökologie kompakt, 3. Auflage. Elsevier.
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