Organisation and partners involved

Over a hundred biologists go into the field to collect data on behalf of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). Many species specialists conduct identification work in the laboratory. The field and laboratory work is coordinated by a company commissioned by the FOEN.

Project direction

BDM is run by the Federal Office for the Environment’s biodiversity and landscape division.

Project coordination

After a public invitation to tender in 2020, the five-year contract for project coordination and data collection was awarded to Hintermann & Weber AG in Reinach, Switzerland.

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Our Teams in the field and laboratory

  • Over a dozen people identify plants at the edge of a forest. Most of them are kneeling and looking through a magnifying glass.
    Topos Ecological Counseling has been commissioned to monitor vascular plants as well as gather moss and mollusk samples. Approximately a dozen of its employees are involved in BDM field work.
  • Over a dozen people stand in a stream. Most of them are holding a net for sampling aquatic invertebrates.
    Aquatic insects are monitored by roughly 20 fieldworkers, with various experts in charge of species identification. Aquabug, a company based in Marin near Neuchâtel, is responsible for organizing the work.
  • Around thirty people swing their butterfly nets in a park.
    Directly coordinated by Hintermann & Weber AG, roughly 40 experts from all over Switzerland conduct BDM butterfly monitorings.
  • The moss specialists sit behind their binoculars with the dried moss samples spread out next to them for identification.
    The FUB Research Group for Environmental Monitoring in Rapperswil is responsible for identifying mosses in a laboratory setting
  • The snail specialists sit side by side and discuss difficult species identifications.
    Gastropods are sorted and identified by Mr. Jörg Rüetschi in Bern and the Agentur Umwelt office for applied animal ecology in Höxter, Germany.
  • A very large number of ornithologists at the staff conference of the Swiss Ornithological Institute Sempach.
    Breeding birds are surveyed by the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Sempach with its “Monitoring Common Breeding Birds” programme.

Hotspot Special Edition

Cover of the Hotspot special issue on 20 years of biodiversity monitoring in Switzerland.

The Hotspot special edition on 20 years of BDM shows who works behind the data and highlights current developments in biodiversity.

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National Database

BDM data and the species records are forwarded to the respective national data and information centre and integrated into its databases. Data on vascular plants are sent to InfoFlora, data on moss types to Swissbryophytes and data on butterflies, snails and aquatic invertebrates to info fauna.
InfoSpecies