News

Wood can be building material, CO2 storage and even a force of nature. The latest issue of Diagonal is dedicated to this renewable resource.

Leg 3 of MOSAiC takes 3 months longer than planned. The WSL remote sensing installation threatened by ice crack finally allows good data collection.

The lockdown saw many Swiss people go to forests more often than usual, but even more stopped visiting them entirely, a survey reveals.

A study with the participation of WSL professor Charlotte Grossiord published in Science shows the impact of global warming on forest age structure.

"Swissinfo.ch": melting ice can release viruses and bacteria that are potentially harmful to humans. With Beat Frey (WSL).

To mark Biodiversity Day (22 May), a WSL and an Eawag researcher tell us why it is important to look beyond the system boundaries.

Some good news on World Bee Day (20 May): the city of Zurich is home to a surprising variety of wild bees, with 164 species recorded.

The forest canopy mitigates peak summer temperatures for the understorey. When that shade disappears, the organisms living there suffer.

A real visual treat: Info Flora’s species portraits now include over 1,000 stem cross-sections and descriptions prepared by WSL collaborators.

Burnt beech forests provide less protection against natural hazards than intact woods. A new WSL Fact Sheet describes the fire and vegetation dynamics.

Swiss chestnut forests contain a genetic diversity that is unique in Europe, indicates a new study. Many chestnut forests consist of grafted trees.

For one month, tree-ring scientists braved the harsh conditions of Northern Siberia to find old wood. Patrick Fonti is taking us along on the trip.

Andreas Rigling's photo taken in Siberia has received a distinction in the scientific image competition of the National Science Foundation.

Researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Zurich as well as WSL studied the 100-year development of plant diversity in the canton of Zurich.

Light, landscape and people lift the spirits of SLF doctoral student Amy Macfarlane, who has to stay in the Arctic for a while longer. More on the blog.

Yann Vitasse painted the buds of saplings for an experiment on leaf emergence in spring. He explains why in the blog.

Urban gardens help with psychological restoration. A WSL study shows that allotments are more restorative on average than domestic gardens.

Even the MOSAiC expedition has felt the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Another challenge is that the ice floe breaks into smaller pieces.

Das Swiss Polar Institute präsentiert ein neues Online-Lehrmittel: Die www.polar-class.ch enthält Videos, Podcasts und Lesestoff über die Pole.

During the 2018 summer drought, beech trees dropped their fruit early. WSL researchers were now able to document this response in forest trees.