Desirée Guidobaldi Stenbacka

I am a Ph.D. candidate in wildlife movement ecology, building on a master’s degree in wildlife ecology and conservation, and a background in environmental engineering. My research explores how landscape compositions influence moose habitat use and the extent of forest damage across various spatial-temporal scales. By analyzing GPS tracking data of collared moose across Sweden, I investigate their movement patterns, habitat preferences, and the factors that drive browsing pressure in young forest stands. 

My Ph.D. research project focuses on understanding how abiotic, biotic, and human-driven processes influence the movement and habitat use of moose in managed forest landscapes. Moose play a dual role as ecosystem engineers, benefiting forest ecosystems but also causing significant browsing damage, leading to conflicts with forestry. Your work aims to explore the factors that shape moose movement decisions, such as forest management practices, landscape structure, and human influence, across different spatial and temporal scales.

Using GPS tracking data from over 800 moose spanning a latitudinal gradient in Sweden, you investigate how moose utilize different habitats, particularly young forest stands, and how this utilization translates into varying levels of browsing damage. You also examine how individual moose vary in their movement strategies and how this impacts forest ecosystems.

The overarching goal of your research is to provide insights that will help mitigate conflicts between moose and forestry by identifying the key landscape features and management practices that influence moose habitat selection and browsing behavior. This knowledge is essential for developing sustainable forest management practices that balance moose populations with forestry interests.

In the context of my Ph.D. project, environmental analysis involves:

Landscape Structure and Composition: This focuses on examining different land cover classes, habitat heterogeneity, and using a patch-landscape approach to investigate habitat structure in terms of patchiness. Key patch metrics include total patch area, mean patch size, patch density, and contiguity, which are used to quantify how fragmented or continuous young forest patches are.

Additionally, connectivity metrics are applied to assess the proximity and isolation of patches, such as using Euclidean Nearest-Neighbor Distance. Fragmentation is addressed not only by examining patch connectivity but also by considering the distance to roads and other anthropogenic factors. This approach helps to better understand how moose interact with and move through various landscapes.

my PhD project involves a close collaboration with forestry companies (in particular Sveaskog). To understand how different forest management practices influence moose habitat utilization and browsing damage. This collaboration ensures access to important data and helps to align research findings with practical forest management strategies.

2012-2015 B.Sc. Environmental and Safety Engineering (180hp), Insubria University, Varese, Italy. 

10/2020-03/2022 M.Sc. Wildlife Management Conservation and Control (120 hp), University of Sassari, Italy.

I have built up my interdisciplinary experience, by working as environmental and water consulting engineer in different countries (Italy, Sweden, New Zealand), and joining different kinds of fieldwork during the summer period.

While during my Master's degree, I worked in a temporary position as a wildlife officer at the Administration County Board (Länsstyrelsen) Dalarna.