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Ecosystem Ecology

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Research focus

The Research Group addresses the impact of natural and anthropogenic environmental changes on the nutrient and carbon fluxes in forests, the hydrological cycle within forests and on forest ecosystem health. To this end the RG studies the biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nutrients and their long-term trends using long-term studies, large-scale surveys, as well as field and laboratory experiments. It also addresses the quantitative effects of forest growth on regional carbon, nutrient and water fluxes and develops methods to quantify resource pools and fluxes in forest ecosystems on different scales.

Main research questions

What is the impact of ...

climate change on forest ecosystems?
pollution on soil and plants?
management on nutrient availability?

Methods

The outcomes of this research allow the development of scenarios to assess and model the risk linked to regional and global anthropogenic changes, including nutrient and pollution deposition, climate change, carbon dioxide increase and changes in forest management, on forest (ecosystem) health, in both, the short and long run.

National and international position

The group has partners both within the WSL and the wider national and international scientific community. The stakeholders are federal and international agencies, the forest services and the forest owners.

The group forms the core of the Swiss contribution to ICP Forests, to which Switzerland has been committed by signing the Geneva Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. It also provides information on several criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management laid down by the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Projects

HeatFrost: Wie beeinflussen wärmere Winter die Frosthärte zukünftiger Baumarten?

Sind potenziell zukunftsfähige Arten, die hitze- und trockentolerant sind, auch genug frosttolerant? Wir untersuchen, wie sich wärmere Winter auf die Frosthärte verschiedener, aktuell als zukunftsfähig eingestufter Baumarten auswirken.

Diel C-fluxes within needles from conifer trees

The microC-flux project aims at elucidating the diel dynamics of carbon within foliage of conifer trees, assessing the C-enrichment within transient starch pools of needle tissues by means of nanoSIMS imaging and modelling the opposite radial transport of water and assimilates inside of needles

Spectral screening for the early detection of a highly invasive beetle in Switzerland

The emergence of visible tree-stress symptoms caused by the emerald ash borer occurs only several years after its arrival and are hard to tell apart from those caused by soil drought. Here, we investigate the potential of reflectance spectroscopy as an early-warning screening tool.

TradeES

To better inform forest practitioners, the TradeES project examines trade-offs among drought impact on forest growth, ecological functions and ecosystem services in thinned and unthinned Norway spruce-dominated stands in Switzerland.

MainWood

Options for the use of wood in construction will be investigated, developed and tested as a contribution to a functioning circular economy and the Swiss bioeconomy. The aim is to identify the most important leverage points in the value chain to increase the use of wood in construction and to develop ecologically optimal scenarios for the use of wood in Switzerland.

INSIghtForest: IN SItu tracking of water fluxes in Forest ecosystems

INSIghtForest will accompany the Cost Action WATSON "WATer isotopeS in the critical zONeproposes" by establishing a unique data set of high frequency in-situ measured water isotopes located in a long-term irrigation experiment Pfynwald in the naturally dry valley of Valais, Switzerland.

FORWARDS: European Observatory to assess the vulnerability of forests towards climate change

FORWARDS aims to develop, test, and implement a European Observatory that will supply timely and detailed information on European forests' vulnerability to climate change impacts, and provide knowledge to guide climate smart forestry

VPDrought: A novel approach to disentangle atmospheric and soil drought

By deciphering the single vs. combined VPD and soil moisture effects, we will be able to improve global predictions. We aim to apply a scale spanning approach to disentangle the processes affected by atmospheric (i.e., VPD) and soil droughts from the tissue to the tree and the ecosystem level.

How does a changing light environment in terms of intensity and spectrum affect plant functioning?

Using stable isotopes, we want to investigate how a changing light quality could affect plant functioning and what mechanisms underlie these responses, especially when light interacts with other environmental factors.

Bark beetle infestation in protective forests

This project aims at improving the early detection of bark beetle damage in forests in the canton of Grisons as well as the prioritisation of management against bark beetle infestation in protective forests in the long term.

PhenoMast

This project aims to integrate the recording of standardized mast observation into existing phenology networks (e.g. PhaenoNet, Phenowald, PhenoRanger) and field surveys. The recorded data will be made publicly available on the already established platform of MastWeb hosted at WSL.

High-resolution climate reconstruction

Tree-ring d13C variations are a valuable archive of climatic information. A novel laser-ablation isotope-ratio mass-spectrometer enables to study variations within a single tree ring. We therefore plan to determine the occurrence of dry and wet periods of the past with unprecedented resolution.

Digiforest

The mission of DIGIFOREST is to develop the technology needed to achieve sustainable digital forestry. It includes fundamental science for mobile robotic navigation (multi-sensor motion tracking, 3D mission planning etc.) and data-driven semantic mapping.

Nanoplastic uptake and transport in trees

In this project we assess the uptake and transport of nanoplastics in trees by using polystyrene nanoparticles doped with Palladium and detection of these particles with ICP-MS.

TreeWater - Disentangling the isotopic signal transfer from source water to tree rings

TreeWater aims to improve our understanding of whether and how information on water uptake dynamics can be retrieved from the oxygen and hydrogen (i.e. water) isotopes in tree rings.

MountEx

The MountEx project, part of the WSL research program Extremes, aims to develop guidance and tools for managing spruce-dominated mountain forests under the influence of previously unthinkable, extreme disturbances.

ProtoAIM - Enhanced Plot Design for Advanced Inventorying and Monitoring

We will enhance the design of the Swiss NFI plots to accomodate an augmented series of measurements, sampling and analysis needed to respond to pressing research question on status and change of the Swiss forest.

EMERGE - Extreme droughts in mountain regions

EMERGE will investigate the impacts of historic megadroughts on water fluxes and ecosystems in mountain regions, and use this knowledge to develop stress-test scenarios for a possible future megadrought in the Swiss Alps.

ICOS-2: Integrated Carbon Observation System in Switzerland, Phase 2017-2021

Die Forschungsstation Seehornwald Davos wurde in den 80er-Jahren von der WSL initiiert und ist damit eine der ältesten permanent betriebenen Wald-Vegetations-Forschungsstationen in der Schweiz.

Tracing hybridization of oriental beech following assisted gene flow

Development of a cost-effective remote sensing tool based on optical spectroscopy to track the hybridization between European and oriental beech

PhenoRangers

"PhenoRangers" aims to establish interactions between current research on the impact of climate change on the forest and the public, using phenology as the main tool.

Cold stress mighgt limit carbon gain also in a warming climate

Photosynthesis of forest ecosystems can be reduced in spring most likely due to cold temperatures. Such cold-related processes are, however, not captured in mechanistic models and we thus aim to assess the mechanisms and frequencies of such depressions and include them into models.

N-DEPEND - Is there a "Nitrogen Deposition Penalty" for Forests under Drought?

This project intends to test the "N-penalty" hypothesis for the Swiss forests. By statistical modeling and quasi-experimental analyses based on N deposition estimates, drought indices and NFI data, we assess interacting effects of N deposition and drought on forest health and productivity.

How will changes in the phenology of species affect the biodiversity of lakes and their surrounding watersheds?

As part of the Blue-Green Biodiversity Research Initiative (Eawag-WSL funded by ETH), we study differences in the effect of global environmental change on the phenology of primary production in lakes and their surrounding watersheds using remote sensing techniques.

Phenological synchrony between soil microbes, nutrient availability, trees leaf-out and moths

The synchronization between supply and demand of resources in temperate forests is vital to ensure the optimal and sustainable functioning of these ecosystems. This project aims to understand how global warming is disrupting interactions between above- and below-ground organisms.

TreeNet - The biological drought and growth indicator network

TreeNet ist ein internationales Beobachtungs- und Forschungsnetzwerk, in dem Punktdendrometer automatisch die täglichen Stammradiusschwankungen von Bäumen erfassen. Der kontinuierliche Fluss von Daten liefert Echtzeitinformationen über die Wasserverhältnisse im Baum und das radial Stammwachstum

Drought & beech: Effects of the 2018 summer drought on beech on the northern side of the Alps

In this project, we investigate causes for the impacts of the extreme summer drought 2018 on the vitality of beech trees in different regions of the Swiss Plateau and Jura.

ExtremeImpact

This project build up on high-resolution observations of conifer tree growth in the Swiss Lötschental valley to quantify at cell-based resolution the impact of the extreme summer drought 2015 on tree-ring biomass, sapwood conductivity, and water use efficiency.

UAV-based monitoring of physiological tree responses

In this project, we investigate the potential of spectral proxies, obtained from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) high-resolution multispectral and thermal imaging, to detect trees pre-visual drought stress responses.

Integration of biodiversity conservation and forest management

The publication "How to balance biodiversity conservation and forest management - a tour across Europe" written by more than 70 scientific and professional experts from 50 Institutions and 20 different countries explores how to best integrate biodiversity conservation in forest management

eLTER Switzerland

The Long-Term Ecologiocal Research in Europe (LTER-Europe) capitalizes on research infrastructures such as the in-situ network of sites and information technology. Thousands of research projects have been carried out taking advantage of this infrastructure.

Climate-smart forestry directions based on national Forest Inventory data

In this project we use the data of the Swiss national forest inventory to develop an assessment system that accounts for the three aspects of climate-smart forestry: mitigation, adaptation and the sustainable provision of forest ecosystem services.

Acclimation and environmental memory

Which are the main mechanisms conveying adaptation on the organ and whole tree level, how fast does acclimation occur and how long is an acclimation potential sustained?

PFF2020

Our main objective is the installation of a long-term Plant Physiological Facility for online determination of gas exchange and isotope fractionations at WSL in the 2020s.

Dormancy-Track

The project aims to track the progress of winter bud dormancy of major temperate trees by regularly tracing the amount of isotopically labelled water that can be transferred to the buds during the whole dormancy period.

TreeCarbo: From assimilates towards tree-rings - Triple isotope analysis of carbohydrates

The project aims to provide novel mechanistic ways to reconstruct functional responses of trees to climatic changes in high temporal and spatial resolution by improving and combining fractionation models for carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen isotopes.

Give and take: how much water does soil retain for trees?

Establishing an inventory of soil water availability to trees in Swiss forest soils. This is done by means of model-based analysis of the water balances at 16 long-term monitoring sites in Switzerland, representing various geographical locations, soil and vegetation types.

FORClimateS

The project aims to aggregate and synthesize existing information on different spatial and temporal scales to provide decision-makers with relevant and robust information on short- and long-term risks for forests and forest functions and on adaptation strategies under different climate futures

Establishing hydrogen isotope analysis of organic material

We aim to develop a method for hydrogen isotope (d2H) analysis of organics which will have many applications in plant and soil sciences and thereby provide a powerful new tool to disentangle and reconstruct past and present physiological, biochemical, and hydrological processes.

ISOWEB

Our objective is to develop a protocol to analyse food webs in deadwood using compound-specific stable isotope analyses. The applicability to track changes in foodwebs between tree species and different management types along deadwood decomposition will be tested using data from a large experiment.

Isodrought

We want to explore a stable isotope tree-ring approach for analyzing physiological drought responses of trees. The results are expected to provide a novel diagnostic tool for understanding causes of tree decline.

Photoperiod and ciracian clocks - effects on adaptation and acclimation

Do evolutionary constraints on photoperiod and circadian clocks hinder adaptation and acclimation of plants to climate change? With this project, we will provide the mechanistic basis and a conceptual framework to understand how climatic and daylight/photoperiod cues jointly affects tree functioning.

Understanding how species interactions modulate long-term heat and drought impacts

The project aims to assess the physiological processes by which trees adapt and interact with each other under a changing climate, determine how these processes affect tree physiological responses to climatic stresses, and better understand long-term shifts in tree internal carbon and water cycles.

Carbon storage and ungulate browsing

The joint effects of drought tolerance and herbivory is determined by analysing the extent to which water use efficiency and C storage of Abies alba saplings are influenced by genetic factors and ungulate browsing.

Forests under stress

In this project we will assess the physiological processes by which trees adjust and interact among each other under a changing climate, determine the consequences of these processes on forest responses to climatic stresses and improve our understanding of these effects on forests functioning at a large comprehensive scale.

PRO3FILE

To improve our assessment of ozone effects on forest ecosystems, we advocate the need (i) for further experimental and long-term monitoring studies and (ii) to develop physiological and demographic modelling tools.

Sumforest - ForRISK

Risk resilient forest management - Adapting forest management regimes, including risk assessment related to potential climate change impacts.

Drought effects on reproductive phenology and the underlying physiological mechanisms in pine trees

We use a long-term precipitation manipulation experiment in mature Pinus sylvestris forests and a natural precipitation gradient from 840 mm to 290 mm/year with Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica, to study the "Drought effects on reproductive phenology and the physiological mechanisms of pine trees".

Tea bag decomposition study

Decomposition of plant litter is a key process for the transfer of carbon and nutrients in ecosystems. Carbon contained in the decaying biomass is released to the atmosphere as respired CO2, and may contribute to global warming. Litterbag studies have been used to improve our knowledge of the drivers of litter decomposition, but they lack comparability because litter quality is plant species-specific. The use of commercial tea bags as a standard substrate was suggested in order to harmonize studies, where green tea and rooibos represent more labile and more recalcitrant C compounds as surrogates of local litter.

Carbon and nutrient dynamics of Scots pine

In the CaNuPine project, we study the effects of drought and nutrient availability on the carbon dynamics within Pine (Pinus sylvestris) trees. This will contribute to the controversial debate whether drought may or may not cause acute growth decline and mortality via carbon starvation.

Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS)

Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) is a European research infrastructure to quantify and understand the greenhouse gas balance of the European continent and of adjacent regions.

Net Ecosystem Productivity - NEPSRI

Point dendrometer-based SRI data are collected within the project TreeNet and used to estimate NEP. The estimation is performed in near-real-time on the TreeNet processing platform (TreeNet_Pro) and needs temporally highly resolved SRI data and a site-specific leaf area index as input.

Below-canopy climate

Microclimate is a key factor influencing regeneration in forests. Particularly available light, water supply and temperature determine the success or failure of certain tree species. How will future climate change influence below-canopy microclimate and tree regeneration?

Soil as a site factor

This project delivers soil and site related information for Swiss forests which are based mainly on measured values: (i) response of tree species relating to direct and indirect environmental variables, (ii) quantitative characterisation of species' ecological niche and (iii) soil ecological indicator values for forest plant species.

Evoltree

A large network of research institutions collaborates within an EC-funded Network of Excellence to study the impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems from an evolutionary perspective.

Composition of the driftwood

During the floods in August 2005 in Switzerland, many villages encounter problems not only because of a high water flow, but also because of large amounts of driftwood. Therefore the question of the origin and the formation of the driftwood arised.

Irrigation Experiment Pfynwald

Drought-induced forest decline will gain in importance as the frequency and severity of drought events are expected to increase in the context of climate change. To understand how chronic drought affects tree growth, we study mature Scots pine in an irrigation experiment in an inner-Alpine dry valley since 2003.

Nadelchemie der Fichte

Mit dem Projekt "Monitoring Flankierende Massnahmen Umwelt" (MFM-U) untersucht die Schweiz die Umwelt-Auswirkungen des Landverkehrsabkommens mit der EU sowie die Umwelt-Auswirkungen der flankierenden Massnahmen. Im diesem Teilprojekt stehen die Auswirkungen auf den Wald im Vordergrund.

Soil solution in LWF plots

The chemistry of soil solution and the soil water availability for plants have been monitored since 1997 in seven forest plots in Switzerland. This project, linked to the Swiss Long-term Forest Ecosystem Research project (LWF), aims to assess the soil response to atmospheric pollution (acidifying substances and nitrogen) and to climate change.

Crown condition assessment

It is important to have good information on the condition of the trees in the plots. Therefore scientists determine the relationships between crown condition and a number of environmental parameters.

TreeNet

TreeNet is a biological drought and growth indicator network of forest ecosystems. It provides information about drought responses of trees all over Switzerland and their effects on the carbon balance of forests. TreeNet links the research of the eddy flux super sites Davos and Lägeren to the forest next to your home.

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Staff

Forest Growth and Climate