2019

The Xmas Brass Band comes by each year, also this year in the LFW: playing classical as well as not so classical Xmas carols. Thanks!! (20 December 2019)

Xmas Apero of ETH Zurich: the main building as we see it very rarely! (17 December 2019)

Additional funding for ServiceGrass. Valentin received funds to dive deeper into soil services. Congrats!! (13 December 2019)

And other paper accepted: this time in Oecologia. Christoph Bachofen´s paper on light and VPD gradients drive foliar nitrogen partitioning and photosynthesis in the canopy of European beech and silver fir from the project L2C will be out soon. (10 December 2019)

Interested in food security and a healthy diet? Check out the latest issue of external pageUpliftcall_made, published by ETH Foundation, with a contribution by Nina Buchmann. (9 December 2019)

Sergei´s next paper has been accepted by Nature Communications... right at Nikolaus-Tag! Congrats!! Here we report on plant diversity effects on forage quality, yield and revenues of semi-natural grasslands. (6 December 2019)

Grassland Xmas: always a great opportunity to catch up with former group members, the families or just to hang out and chat with each other. Thanks Mana for taking the lead! Thanks to all who helped with the shopping, in the kitchen, with the deco, with cleaning in the end ... ! It was a great evening! (4 December 2019)  

What a surprise today in the morning: an advent calendar in the coffee room!! The bags can be opened by the person who fulfills the specification.... (1 December 2019)

With the ICOS Class 1 label of our Davos site, also the Downloadexcursion guide (PDF, 7.9 MB)vertical_align_bottom could be updated and uploaded. Thanks, Sue!! Looks great. (28 November 2019)

"Grassland ecology: Ecosystem services and resilience to climate change" was the topic, Nina Buchmann gave a seminar about in the Seminar Series for Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies (SEBES) at University of Zurich. Thanks for the invitation and great discussions!! (19 November 2019)

Sergei´s paper is out in external pageEcological Economicscall_made!! Congrats. Economic benefits from plant species diversity are also present in intensively managed grasslands!! (6 November 2019)

The update on the external pageTRY databasecall_made has been accepted by GCB! Stay tuned. (3 November 2019)

This year´s symposium of the WFSC took place in the Audimax. The main program included keynotes and presentations on current research in the context of sustainable food systems, supporting to reach the external pageSustainable Development Goals.call_made Leaving the WFSC team, Anna K. Gilgen has been officially thanked and bid farewell by the Executive Director. Congratulations, Anna!

Our group members Qing Sun, Yujie Liu, Valentin Klaus and Sabina Keller presented their posters at the networking session. All PDFs of the posters are available here. (31 October 2019)

Last field day of the year: Winter is approaching and the field season is slowly coming to an end. Valentin Klaus, Franziska Richter and Iris Feigenwinter went to the Chamau field station for a nitrogen measurement campaign in the course of the project SUPER-G. They took soil gas samples for isotope analysis and buried resin bags to measure nitrate leaching. Despite  the rainy weather, their motivation remained high. (30 Ocboer 2019).

ETH-Klimarunde 2019: "Climate change in mountain regions - And now?" Anna K. Gilgen and Nina Buchmann answered questions about adaptation necessity of mountain agriculture. (23 October 2019)

We congratulate doctoral student Andreas Riedl again for being awarded the 2019 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award of the European Geosciences Union. Andreas received this award for his poster “Quantification of Dew and Fog Water Inputs to Swiss Grasslands” presenting his work in the IFDewS project. (22 October 2019)
Find out more external pageherecall_made.

external pageSciencecall_made comment out: scientific discourse on climate change mitigation. (18 October 2019)

Two more synthesis papers out, based on results from the Jena Experiment: external pageEisenhauer et al.call_made and external pageManning et al.call_made Both papers are chapters of a new volume of Advances in Ecological Research. Check it out external pageherecall_made. (11 October 2019) 

Interested in teaching material on climate change? Our "Forschungsheft Klimawandel" is now openly external pageavailablecall_made (in German only)! Check it out. (7 October 2019)

The Picarro Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy device for water vapor isotope measurements has moved to our field site Früebüel. Paul Linwood led the efforts to install the measurement inlet on the roof of the research facility. The measurements at Früebüel are part of the IFDewS subproject “Quantifying the net effect of fog and dew water on grassland plant species using artificially enriched stable isotope tracers” conducted by Yafei Li. With the water vapor isotope measurements, we can interpret the atmospheric dynamics during dew and fog nights. Before moving to Früebüel, the Picarro instrument was installed at Chamau from July 2018 to April 2019 and at Alp Weissenstein from July to September 2019. (1 October 2019)

Long established theory but no experimental evidence in sight: complementary resource use of plants in high diverse grassland mixtures. Barry et al. compiled all what we know from the Jena Experiment. But no evidence either, read the latest paper in external pageEcologycall_made.  (27 September 2019)

Right on time for the start of autumn – the foggy season in many parts of the Swiss Plateau – journalist Luc Müller of the Aargauer Zeitung interviewed Werner Eugster about fog in general and about his research on the topic in particular. Among many other things, Werner explained why fog has many positive (as well as some negative) features and how he is exploring fog in his research projects Fog4Cast and IFDewS. (25 September 2019)

Solen´s article is available online: Assessment of spatial variability of multiple ecosystem services in grasslands of different intensities. Check it out external pageherecall_made. (19 September 2019)

Interested to use a new method in teaching? It is called Rich Picture Method and is easy and very useful to obtain info what students have learned and understood. Read our new paper by external pageGrant et al.call_made, with contributions of Anna K. Gilgen and Nina Buchmann. (4 September 2019)

The Grassland Sciences retreat this year took place in Gais, Appenzell. A wrap-up of three years of projects, past, current and the future ones, and a session on communication were part of the two days. Not to forget a visit to a local saddlery.... (2/3 September 2019)

A warm WELCOME to Kristiina Marquardt. She will spend the next three months with as as external pageIAESTEcall_made exchange student. (1 September 2019)

Finally, the long-aspired email came today "We will move the final files to printer". After six years revising the first edition of the "Plant Ecology" by Schulze et al. and two years revising the many rounds of proofs (six in total), the external page2^nd editioncall_made is finally in press!!! (7 August 2019)

Nina Buchmann started her second 2-years term as Head of the D-USYS, the Department of Environmental Systems Sciences. (1 August 2019)

"Step back from the forest and step up to the Bonn Challenge: how a broad ecological perspective can promote successful landscape restoration" is the title of a new open-access paper by external pageTemperton et al.call_made (2019) published as an invited strategic article in Restoration Ecology, with contributions by Nina Buchmann. (3 July 2019)

Using plant traits to model ecosystem fluxes? This was the main question of a new paper by external pagePeaucelle et al. 2019call_made published in Global Ecology and Biogeography, with contributions of Nina Buchmann. It turned out to be more difficult than expected..... (30 June 2019)

Exkursion at Alp Weissenstein (Crap Alv): together with colleagues from the Animal Nutrition group, Shiva Ghiasi and Valentin Klaus guided students through the research station, explored alpine grasslands and showed the setup for gas flux measurements. (28 June 2019)

Bury undies or rather tea bags? Why not bury both? Agroscope invited families to bury the former, Yujie Liu and Gicele Duarte buried the latter. Where? In the plots of the RELOAD project. Listen to the children (in external pageGermancall_made, in external pageEnglishcall_made) and read about the event (in external pageGermancall_made). (19 June 2019)

What a day! The ICOS-CH consortium (almost complete) visited the Jungfraujoch, an ICOS Class 1 atmospheric station at 3571 m asl. We learned about the history of the site, about newest results from atmospheric sciences and also enjoyed the view. (18 June 2019)

The biannual D-USYS conference took place in Davos. Mana Gharun presented the Swiss FluxNet and data from our site Davos. We had lots of great discussions and enjoyed the three days! (5-7 June 2019)

Consequences of technical innovations posted on social media: Paul Linwood had posted pictures of his LoRaWAN set-up, developed for the IFDewS project and installed at Früebüel, on a Slack channel of external pageThe Things Networkcall_made. Then he was contacted by external pageSWITCHcall_made and asked if he could present his work as a 10min "Lightning Talk" during a Working group meeting addressing Network and Security in Morschach. And sure, he did! Great achievement! (5-6 June 2019)

About 45 members of the Society of Experts of the German State Institutes for Forestry (external pageDVFFAcall_made) visited our Candidate Class 1 ICOS Site Davos during their bi-annual meeting held in Davos. (5 June 2019)

«Nein, ich bin nicht die Sekretärin von Professor Buchmann. Ich bin Professor Buchmann.» translated as "No, I am not the secretary of Prof. Buchmann. I am Prof. Buchmann." Here the external pageinterviewcall_made with the NZZ in Geman. Thanks for all the positive feedback I received, via Email and twitter!! (5 June 2019)

Two synthesis papers accepted for publication in external pageAdvances in Ecological Researchcall_made on Mechanisms underlying the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function: Eisenhauer et al. and Manning et al., both with contributions of Nina Buchmann and former group members working in the Jena Experiment. (29 May 2019)

"external pageKleine Gase - Große Wirkung: Der Klimawandelcall_made" is the original title of a small book on "Small gases - Large effect: Climate Change", written by Nelles and Serrer. Nina Buchmann helped with the facts, as many other scientists. Meet the authors, during an external pageinterview with SWR3call_made (28 May 2019)

"AgriTech Day 2019", a busy day with lots of demonstrations, talks and booths to interact and talk about "Agriculture of the Future - Digital and Sustainable?" Many members of the Grassland Sciences group participated. Regine had the lead! Thank you, this was a lot of work! (25 May 2019)

Microbial succession on decomposing root litter in a drought-prone Scots pine forest. This is the title of external pageHerzog et al. (2019)call_made now available online (and open access) in The ISME journal, one of the Nature journals on Microbial Ecology, with contribution of Nina Buchmann (23 May 2019)

The mobile eddy flux tower within the external pageNRP73call_made project InnoFarm moved again! Thomas Baur, Markus Staudinger and Regine Maier went to canton Solothurn for the next rotation of our instruments. Under quite wet conditions, they set up a new site in Aeschi (SO) where they are measuring greenhouse gas fluxes (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O and water vapor) from a pea field. (8 May 2019)

"external pageZwischen Vor-Gärten und Welt-Klimacall_made" was the title of a panel discussion in Wittenbach, canton St. Gallen, Nina Buchmann contributed. (30 April 2019)

As a follow-up of Nina Buchmann´s talk at the Anniversary Event "30 years Vontobel Award for Agricultural Sciences" (see below, 28 March 2019), Vontobel interviewed her on the current challenges agriculture is facing. Read the interview in external pageGermancall_made and in external pageEnglishcall_made. (18 April 2019)

We warmly welcome Florian Käslin back to the Grassland Sciences Group. Florian joins the techs until end of July while Ivo Beck is leaving the team to pursue a doctoral thesis at PSI. A big thank you and a good start to both of them. (15 April 2019)

And the best at the end: The 2019 Outstanding Student Poster and Pico (OSPP) Award of the EGU is awarded to Andreas Riedl for his poster Quantification of Dew and Fog Water Inputs to Swiss Grasslands, presenting first results of the IFDewS project.

The mobile eddy flux tower indeed moved: from our long-term site Oensingen to a new site, Däniken, also in the canton of Solothurn. The mobile eddy station measures CO₂, water vapour but also CH₄ and N₂O fluxes within the joint NRP73 project InnoFarm. (5 April 2019)

A warm welcome to Dr. Anna K. Gilgen who takes over new tasks in our group: as Management and Research Assistant! (1 April 2019)

Plant species richness effects on consumer species richness are consistently positive and mediated by structural and functional diversity of the plant communities. These are the key findings of the Schuldt et al. (2019 paper to which our group contributed. Read more (open access) in external pageNature Communicationscall_made. (29 March 2019)

"Nachhaltigkeit und Landwirtschaft – Ein Widerspruch?" (Sustainability and Agriculture – A Contradiction?) was the title of Nina Buchmann´s keynote at the Anniversary Event "external page30 years Vontobel Award for Agricultural Sciencescall_made". Her answer: "No!" (28 March 2019)

"This manuscript by Mannerheim et al. is an overdue paper on analytical challenges when measuring isotopically enriched samples with high precision and accuracy...", wrote one of the reviewrs and we could not agree more. The paper is accepted and will come out soon in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. (27 March 2019)

Nicole Staubli gave her Farewell Znüni today: she will leave us end of the month and take on new challenges! We wish her all the best and will keep in contact. Promised! (18 March 2019)

In today´s lab meeting we decided to upload postprints of all our papers published since 2017 in the ETH Zurich Research Collection! A postprint is the accepted manuscript after the peer review process, without the publisher´s layout. Although we often publish in open access journals - about one third of all our papers since 2012 - the other two thirds of our papers are hidden behind paywalls. Well, this will change! The postprints will be available after the respective embargo periods of the publishers have passed (typically between 2 and 36 months). Thus, the old papers will become available as soon as we upload them. Thanks to the team!! (7 March 2019)

Congrats to external pageEugenie Paul-Limogescall_made! Her external pagePSC proposalcall_made was accepted. In the next 18 months, we will be collaborating on "Improved measurements of plant transpiration for sustainable agricultural water use". Measurements will be done at our arable Swiss FluxNet site Oensingen. (27 February 2019)

An another Oensingen paper was published: Revill et al. in external pageField Crops Researchcall_made. The SPA model was used to estimate carbon fluxes of our cropland site. (23 February 2019)

Long interview in the DownloadSchweizer Familie (PDF, 2 MB)vertical_align_bottom with Nina Buchmann. Read why she says "Nobody can rescue the world all alone." (21 February 2019)

Interested to carry out a Bachelor or Master thesis in our group? Check out the Downloadnew topicsvertical_align_bottom, updated today. (16 February 2019)

Winter event at Flumserberg: great fun for all, despite an injury. (14 February 2019)

Our Oensingen site made it on the cover page of external pageFunctional Plant Biologycall_made!!! What an honour. More details can be read in D'Odorico et al. on Vertical patterns of photosynthesis and related leaf traits in two contrasting agricultural crops. (7 February 2019)

Another paper is out: Besnard et al. about Memory effects of climate and vegetation affecting net ecosystem CO₂ fluxes in global forests - to be read in external pagePLoS Onecall_made (6 February 2019)

Another paper is out: Carmen Emmel contributed to a Response to the Editor about Solar-induced chlorophyll fluoresence exhibits a universal relationship with gross primary productivity across a wide variety of biomes - to be read in external pageGlobal Change Biologycall_made (4 February 2019)

And yet another lab course started on a Friday: the Specialized Lab Module on Plant and Ecosystem Physiology, together with the group of Prof. Achim Walter. For 6 days, Bachelor's students of Agricultural Sciences will learn to be "climate and plant performance detectives" .... (1 to 7 February 2019)

A new paper is out with contribution of Nina Buchmann: Roscher et al. about Functional composition has stronger impact than species richness on carbon gain and allocation in experimental grasslands, published in PLoS One external pagehttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0204715call_made (31 January 2019)

Our Annual Academic Achievements report 2018 gives us some interesting numbers:

• 551 students taught in 2018,
  
• 456 grades given in 2018,
  
• 10 active PhD students (by the end of the year),
  
• 4 PhD students finished in 2018,
  
• 18 active grants in 2018, and
• an outstanding number of publications….. 54 !!! This is the record high since this group exists.

Thanks a lot: great team, great fun, great success.

Webinar!? Ever taken one? Quite a special event. As an active participant you sit in front of your computer, give a talk to an audience you cannot see, answer questions which you cannot hear since they come in on the screen.... Nina Buchmann has participated in (her first) webinar (ever) organized by external pageSwiss Re Institutecall_made on "external pageThe European food industry: Increasing resilience and strengthening food securitycall_made". (30 January 2019

Our IsoEcology course took place with many external lecturers and a great group of highly motivated Master's students and PhD students. From Friday to Friday, lectures in the morning, labs in the afternoon, a group presentation on the last afternoon. Quite some highlights, the students even guessed the right wild animal from Kenia based on ­d¹³C in hair: a giraffe. (18 to 25 January 2019)

"Was essen wir morgen? Das Welternährungssystem" was the title of a talk Nina Buchmann gave for about 100 persons at the external pageUniversity for Retired Personscall_made at Schaffhausen. Even the local TV station was interested and interviewed her for the show "external pageHüt im Gschpröchcall_made". (14 January 2019). Also the Schaffhauser Nachrichten, the local newspaper, was present and published an Downloadarticle (PDF, 741 KB)vertical_align_bottom about the talk. (16 January 2019)

Another paper is out: Stieger et al. published their study how to apply carbon isotopes to partition CH₄ fluxes in the Reuss valley. Read the newest success story in external pageIsotopes in Environmental & Health Studiescall_made (online, 9 January 2019).

Have a happy and healthy 2019!