News

What a special day for PD Dr. Federica Tamburini! Federica, who joined our IsoLab team earlier this year, gave her introductory lecture in the main building of ETH Zurich today. In the lecture, entitled "If only Phosphorus could talk: a journey from rocks to life", Federica took the full auditorium on a journey through her scientific life so far and shared many fascinating facts and research findings around phosphorus. The inspiring lecture was followed by an apero with Italian specialities to celebrate the occasion. Well done Fede, we are very proud of you! (12 December 2025)

We had the great opportunity that external page Bahareh Kamali from the University of Bonn held a workshop in our group on “Agroecosystem Modelling". Bahareh has been a guest in our group for the past one and a half years. In the workshop, she introduced the process-based model external page MONICA. After a brief introduction, a hands-on session on the initial steps for running the model and calibration followed. Thank you Bahareh, for the very instructive workshop! (10 December 2025)

It is almost a tradition in the meantime: Many of our group members join the external page Swiss Geoscience Meeting. This year, the SGM was held at University of Bern. Iris Feigenwinter co-convened the session on "Atmospheric composition and biosphere-atmosphere interactions", in which Fabio Turco and Lorenz Allemann presented their work in the DONA project. In the poster session, we were represented with Liliana Scapucci showing first COS fluxes from Lägeren and our Master's student Sarah Maxwell, who presented a driver analysis of twenty years of data from Oensingen. Nina Buchmann co-convened the session "Urban environments and climate change". (6 December 2025)

We never did it this early, but we already did it for the 23^rd time: celebrate the Grassland Xmas. Also this year, we gathered in the LFW Lichthof, where everything had been set up nicely. After an apéro to welcome current and former group members as well as family and guests, pizza was delivered. The pizza went very well with the side dishes that everybody had contributed to the buffet. This was followed by a rich dessert buffet showing off the kitchen skills of diverse Grassies. After the (no longer so secret) performance of the Grassland Orchestraw and a little quiz game, the party continued to be an excellent opportunity to talk to everybody. It was great fun! Thank you for the organisation, Ziyu and Hugo! (21 November 2025)

We warmly welcome Eric Brouwer in the group. Eric will be the technician in the ABACOS project but also support our technical staff with their various tasks. We wish you a good start, Eric! (18 November 2025)

Paulina Englert, who visited our group earlier this year, has received an external page Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award for external page her poster entitled "A 2.5-Year Eddy Covariance Study of Nitrous Oxide Fluxes in Winter Barley, Sugar Beet and Winter Wheat: Responses to Environmental and Management Factors" at EGU. The poster presents her work on N₂O emissions that was part of the things she worked on during the stay in our group. Well done, Paulina. (11 November 2025)

Werner Eugster's former doctoral student external page Stephanie Westerhuis is now working with SRF Meteo, the meteorological service of Swiss television. For the short format "Wetterfrage" (weather questions), she now talked about fog. Inspired by an old article of Werner, she answered the question whether fog is also useful. Listen to the external page hidden hommage to Werner (in Swiss German). (8 November 2025) 

Within the ABACOS project, Nicholas Wright-Osment and Kukka-Maaria Kohonen visited the external page Biomet group at University of Innsbruck to learn more about branch and soil chamber measurements for carbonyl sulfide (COS) that were developed in the group. They also had the chance to visit the very impressive external page FAIR field site that measures (among more than 150 other variables) the CO₂ exchange of a 100 years old sub-alpine pine forest. (30-31 October 2025)

Another extraordinary honor for Nina Buchmann: The British Ecological Society (external page BES) has awarded her Honorary Membership. This is the highest honor given by the BES. The prize recognizes Nina's ecological research throughout her career. However, Nina emphasizes that teamwork is the basis for the award and that therefore, it goes to the entire team, not only her. We are very proud of this award! Have a look at the external page official press release of the BES and the news of D-USYS. (23 October 2025)

We warmly welcome Nicholas Wright-Osment who starts as a doctoral student in our group today. Nick will work in the ABACOS project and look into COS fluxes at Lägeren. Have a good start, Nick! (15 October 2025)

Former Grassland postdoc Stefan Osterwalder returned to Östergarnsholm, the small islet east of Gotland, with Prof. Kevin Bishop to bring the Eddy Mercury campaign to a close. They dismantled the eddy-covariance system that had been measuring air–sea Hg⁰ exchange semi-continuously since May 2024 (see news item of 3 May 2024). Among other insights, they expect the record to clarify how Hg⁰ transfer velocity scales with wind speed from calm through stormy conditions and to resolve diel and seasonal exchange patterns. Warm thanks go to John Prytherch, Senior Research Engineer in Prof. Anna Rutgersson’s group (external page Department of Earth Sciences, Programme for Air, Water and Landscape Sciences; Meteorology at Uppsala University), for his exceptional support during both installation and takedown. We hope to return to this extraordinary place before long. (21-26 September 2025)

Many members of our group attended the external page first eLTER Science Conference in Tampere in June this year. As an invited Keynote speaker, Nina Buchmann gave an external page interview that was now published. In the interview, she talks about her own experience in forest research and explains how an ecosystem is a bit like a children’s game where small changes in one place have big consequences in another place. Read the external page full interview. (18 September 2025)

external page 40 years Anniversary of Czech Globe: A great opportunity to exchange insights on climate change research, the motto was “Quo vaditis?”, i.e., “Where are you going?”. Nina Buchmann was invited to deliver a external page keynote on “Lessons learned from the Swiss FluxNet: Greenhouse gas fluxes, their trends and drivers across multiple scales”. A field trip to the ICOS Class 2 station Bílý Kříž , a Norway spruce forest in the Beskidy Mountains, was a clear highlight of the three days.
(15./16.9.25)

We warmly welcome Aolin Jia to the Grassland Sciences group. Aolin joins PERSIST as the project postdoc. We wish you a good start, Aolin! (15 September 2025)

A short interview with Nina Buchmann kicks off the external page Scientist Says series with external page NextGenCarbon project members. Find out external page what excites Nina about our participation in the European project. (8 September 2025)

In this month's issue of the agricultural magazine external page UFA-Revue, Nina Buchmann shares insights on how grasslands can contribute to net zero by 2050. In her article, she explains how the Swiss FluxNet measurements help understand the greenhouse gas exchange of agroecosystems and how management decisions can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Check out the Download article (PDF, 2.6 MB) (in German). (3 September 2025)

The updated Swiss GCOS-Inventory is published! Many members of our group were part of the large group of contributors. The report contains a section about greenhouse gases that highlights our Swiss FluxNet measurements. Check out the external page full report. (20 August 2025)

We welcome Morten Madsen from University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Morten joins our group as a project mobility student for the next nine months to do his Master’s thesis at Lägeren. Enjoy your stay, Morten! (20 August 2025)

A warm welcome to Federica Tamburini. Federica joins our group to support our IsoLab team. Have a good start! (15 August 2025)

Teaching about agroecology has brought Nina Buchmann to TV: In its Friday series «The idea», the SRF news format 10 vor 10 aired a report on the “external page Hoflabor”. Their regenerative mosaic farming approaches to preserve soils and foster species diversity have also been used as real-world examples in our Agroecology course. Hence, 10 vor 10 visited one of our seminars and interviewed Nina on her opinion about the methods used at “Hoflabor”. Check out external page what she said (in German). (25 July 2025)

During her visit to the Expo Garden of Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University (NWAFU) in Yangling (China), Nina Buchmann gave a short statement on CCTV. Check out external page what she said about the exhibition (it starts around 4:08). (21 July 2025)

Communicating our research results to practitioners is important to us. Therefore, Nina Buchmann wrote a short article for the farmer's newspaper die grüne to share findings from the InsuranceGrass project. Based on the external page review paper published by Yi Wang, she explains that plant diversity acts as an insurance against weather risks. Find out more in the external page article (in German). (18 July 2025)

The external page IAAS, the International Association of Students in Agricultural and Related Sciences, opened their 68^th World Congress at ETH Zurich. Among others, Nina Buchmann gave a short input on "Grasslands & International Collaborations", well fitting the overall theme of "How Ecosystems Shape the Agri-Food Landscape”. (8 July 2025)

A warm welcome to our IAESTE intern Hugo de Sousa Côrtes. Hugo will mainly be working in the DONA project, helping Lorenz Allemann with his measurements. (17 June 2025)

The external page NextGenCarbon consortium met three days in Paris for our Annual meeting. All work packages presented their planned and on-going activities, Flavian Tschurr presented our plans for “isoscapes” across the footprints of eddy-covariance towers. Lots of new opportunities arose. (10-12 June 2025)

Our doctoral student Sophie Emberger attended the European Forum on Urban Forestry (external page EFUF2025), hosted in Zurich this year. The conference brought together researchers, city officials, and NGOs working in the field of urban forestry, allowing a diverse exchange of perspectives on the future of urban green spaces. Hence, a particular highlight of EFUF2025 was its intersectional approach: Keynotes and discussions spanned topics from forest management, public health, environmental justice, and gendered safety perceptions. Sophie gave a talk about her research on hydraulic strategies of urban trees as part of the UrbaNature project. In between sessions and excursions through her hometown’s green spaces, she had the chance to connect with fellow urban forestry enthusiasts and exchange ideas. A big thank you to the EFUF community for the inspiring conversations and great energy!  (3-6 June 2025)

For the second time, the Agricultural Sciences took part in the ETH wide Study Week - as one of the seven study programs which were presented. High school students were able to experience the diversity of the Agricultural Sciences program at ETH Zurich in various workshops. Sabina Keller, who was also responsible for the program entitled "Wie werden wir alle satt? - Forschung für eine nachhaltige Landwirtschaft" (How can we feed everybody? - Research for a sustainable agriculture), led a workshop on the impacts of extreme weather events on grasslands. (2-6 June 2025)

What is the status of the Swiss carbon cycle? This was the topic of a symposium bringing together scientists from many disciplines across Switzerland. Nina Buchmann was invited to present our group’s research in her talk entitled “Swiss FluxNet: Long-term measurements of CO₂ fluxes and carbon budgets for climate-smart management of Swiss forests and agroecosystems”. Check out the program and many impressions. (2 June 2025)

The WaldLab Forest Experimental Site at Hönggerberg is celebrating its fifth anniversary and its head Marius Floriancic is right in the middle of it. In an ETH News article published on the occation of the anniversary,  Marius' work at the Waldlabor is showcased. In the past five years, a multitude of measurements - many of them continuously - have been set up to study water fluxes of the forest. Results from this unique experiment are exciting. For example, measurements of Marius and his team show that most of the stored water is older than three weeks, confirming the "old water paradox". This is just one of many findings - and more are to come. Check out the full ETH news article. (26 May 2025)

In an interview with the ETH Library, Sabina Keller and Lukas Hörtnagl talk about how they share data stewardship in our group. While Sabina acts as data archive manager and makes sure the data comply to external page FAIR standards, , data scientist Lukas takes care of the quality control, processing, and organisation of data. This shared responsibilty ideally supports our group’s efforts to best research data management practices and sharing data openly. Check out the full interview for more information. (9 May 2025)

A very warm welcome back to Ziyu Guo who re-joins our group after an internship in China. Ziyu takes up the position of doctoral student in the ECOVAP project. We wish you a good start, Ziyu! (8 May 2025)

The external page Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) has submitted the latest external page Swiss greenhouse gas inventory to the external page UNFCCC. The inventory covers the period from 1990 to 2023. Our Swiss FluxNet measurements are explicitly mentioned in the external page report for the first time. We are very happy to see that our research made it into such an important policy relevant document. (5 May 2025)

Our group was well represented at the European Geoscience Union General Assembly external page EGU25. Fabio Turco gave a talk about drivers of N₂O fluxes from our cropland site Oensingen, as part of the DONA project. Our visiting PhD student external page Paulina Englert from University of Göttingen presented a poster also on N₂O fluxes, with insights from a crop rotation in Germany. Yi Wang gave a talk about the long-term CO₂ fluxes from the Chamau grassland, as part of the InsuranceGrass project. Marius Floriancic convened a session on stable isotopes for water and nutrient dynamics in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. He also gave a talk on estimating forest-floor litter evaporation with flux data from forest sites Lägeren and Davos. It was a wonderful week to share our research findings, connect with old colleagues and new friends, and enjoy the beautiful weather in Vienna. (27 April – 2 May 2025)

What an extraordinary honor! Nina Buchmann has been elected an international member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (NAS). In their external page announcement, NAS states that membership is a "recognition of distinguished and continuing achievements in original research". It is further mentioned that "Election to membership in the NAS is a widely accepted mark of excellence in science and considered one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive". We are very excited that Nina was awarded this great honor. Congratulations, Nina! (30 April 2025)

Learning it in the lecture hall is one thing, looking at it on a farm is something else. That's why we take our fourth Bachelor's semester students on excursions twice within the Crop Production course. Together with Achim Walter, external page Andi Lüscher, and external page Sonja Hassold, Anna K. Gilgen led the first excursion to a farm in Wetzikon. On this perfectly sunny day, the students identified grass species in vegetative state, studied field flora, looked at wheat in the crop rotation, and got insights into stand management and the farm. Also for the lecturers, it was a very nice opportunity to exchange with the farmers, but also with each other and to learn something new from another agricultural discipline. A big thank you to the Hug family for their hospitality and time, and to the students for their engagement and interaction. (11 April 2025)

From 7 to 11 April, the students of external page Rämibühl High School in Zurich hosted their annual Fokuswoche Klimakrise – a week dedicated to climate change topics, fully organized by the students. This year’s focus was water. Our doctoral student Sophie Emberger took part in the poster fair to present her research on the hydraulic strategies of urban trees within the UrbaNature project. She shared how city trees manage water stress and joined lively discussions from vertical greening to a future where parking lots are replaced by tiny forests. A personal highlight: being invited into the teacher’s lounge for coffee. Thank you for the warm welcome and great organization – it was a pleasure to be a part of this week. (10 April 2025)

Nina Buchmann was invited to give a seminar at the external page Colloquium in Atmosphere, Climate and Earth Observation of the external page Institute of Geography at University of Bern. In her talk entitled "Terrestrial ecosystem functioning in a changing climate: Fluxes, drivers, feedbacks at multiple scales" Nina shared results from our research within Swiss FluxNet. (2 April 2025)

We warmly welcome Daniela Prando da Silva to our group. Daniela starts her IAESTE internship with us today. She will mainly work in the UrbaNature project, supporting Sophie Emberger’s field sampling campaigns. (1 April 2025)

Once a year, the external page ICOS station PIs gather for the ICOS ecosystem monitoring station assembly (MSA) meeting. This year, Iris Feigenwinter went to Madrid to represent external page ICOS-CH and the Davos station. The excursion to external page las Majadas de Tiétar, an ICOS station in the unique Dehesa ecosystem, showcased an amazing workplace for scientists. While the grass is grazed by cattle, the dominant tree species is holm oak (Quercus ilex). Its acorns can be eaten by pigs, resulting in the famous Ibérico ham. At the meeting, attendees discussed CO₂ fluxes, sampling and calibration, documentation (BADM), the FLUXNET 2025 initiative, and further ICOS-related topics, ending with a group exercise on ICOS keywords. (22-24 March)

Our measurements at Waldlabor on Hönggerberg are highlighted in the current issue of the forestry magazine of the canton of Zurich external page Zürcher Wald. The two-page article explains how our eddy covariance measurements will help estimate how long forest plantations take to turn from a carbon source to a carbon sink. We thank the Waldlabor staff for raising awareness of our research with stakeholders in forestry and the broader public. Read the Download full article (PDF, 8 MB) (in German). (26 March 2025)

ICOS-CH coordinator Susanne Burri and external page HFSJG organized an excursion to the ICOS Class 1 Atmosphere Station Jungfraujoch. Along with Sue, also Iris Feigenwinter, Philip Meier joined the external page ICOS Switzerland the excursion to the highest station in the ICOS network at 3572 m a.s.l! The group was first welcomed by the custodians Sonja Stöckli and Thomas Furter for coffee and tea in the old library and then went on a tour through the research station that was built in 1931, guided by the custodians and external page Prof. Eliza Harris (ICOS PI at University of Bern and new director of the station). They then continued to the Sphinx Laboratories, where ICOS measurements and observations were explained by external page Martin Steinbacher (researcher for ICOS at Empa) and Monika Hager (responsible for the ICOS flask sampler at University of Bern). The custodian Thomas Furter explained his daily work at the station, such as regular cloud observations for external page MeteoSwiss. Greenhouse gas concentrations at Jungfraujoch are external page continously rising and external page air temperature has already risen by 2.1 °C between the pre-industrial period 1871–1900 and now (1994–2023).

The weather and views up on Jungfraujoch were fantastic all day. In the end, there was also the possibility to visit the touristic parts of Jungfraujoch, such as the Ice Palace and the Plateau. On the way back, the group decided that the next ICOS Switzerland excursion should go to the ICOS Class 1 Ecosystem Station Davos! (17 March 2025)

external page Prof. Natascha Kljun from Lund University (Sweden) visited us for a week to work on a paper related to one of our project proposals. To be continued! (17-21 March 2025)

Inauguration lecture and party ? We are coming! external page Prof. Valentin Klaus, former member of the group and now professor at the Ruhr University Bochum, gave an extra inauguration talk for friends and family and we all came ... Thanks so much! We enjoyed the talk, the party, and the visit to Bochum. (15 March 2025)

Members of the InsuranceGrass project had their final in-person project meeting in Zurich. They updated each other on the progress of each work package, made plans to conclude the project this year, and shared reflections and feedback on the project. They also exchanged findings with one of their industry partners, external page Schweizer Hagel, and visited the community-supported agricultural farm external page Huebhof. (13/14 March 2025)

Welcome to external page Paulina Englert from University of Göttingen who will stay with us as an exchange doctoral student for the next three months. We are looking forward to a great exchange on greenhouse gas fluxes of agricultural sites. (3 March 2025)

Lorenz Allemann visited Colombia, the country of salsa, pandebono, café and corrientazo, for a second research stay. In 2022, he carried out his MSc thesis in the Colombian Amazon and now returned to visit the external page Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical CIAT in Palmira. Lorenz gave a seminar about drivers of nitrous oxide fluxes in grassland, intensified the connection to the Tropical Forages group and was given an overview of the institute and current projects. Muchas gracias por la hospitalidad! Sin duda volveré - external page Colombia tierra querida. (27 January-7 February 2025)

Fieldwork in winter can be challenging but is also a good opportunity to escape the cloudy conditions in Zurich. Marius Floriancic, Iris Feigenwinter, and two Master's students went to our external page ICOS-CH and Swiss FluxNet site in Davos to take snow samples. The Master’s project is part of the new EU Horizon Project CryoSCOPE and aims to estimate sublimation using stable water isotope analyses and eddy covariance water vapor fluxes from our flux towers. In the afternoon, we also stopped by Marius’ discharge station in the Dischma valley to collect water samples from the Dischmabach. Overall, it was a very nice and sunny day in the field, including some short interactions with skiers that were passing by on the slopes next to our stations. (4 February 2025)

Each year in January, we submit the "AAA", ETH's Annual Academic Achievement report. And here are the achievements of our group from the past year 2024:

• 355 students taught in 652 semester hours during 2024,
• 292 grades given in 2024,
• 1 Bachelor's and 2 Master's theses finished in 2024,
• 10 active doctoral students (by the end of the year),
• a large number of publications ... 42, many written with colleagues from all over the globe.
  86% of our papers have been published in open access journals (Gold OA) or are open access (Hybrid OA). To increase the open access, we also uploaded postprints to the ETH Research Collection (Green OA). The result: 94% of our journal publications from 2024 are openly available to everybody.

Thanks to a great team!!

In a short article in the farmer's newspaper die grüne, Nina Buchmann shares our findings on N₂O emissions from grassland and cropland and concludes that management must support plants to win the competition for soil nitrogen against the microorganisms. The article is complemented with a comment by Hans Frei, former Vice President of the Swiss Farmer's Union. Find out more in the external page article. (20 January 2025)

Our Master course on Stable Isotope Ecology took place again this week. The students attended lectures in the morning and worked on their practical projects in the afternoon. Great success! (10-17 January 2025)

Our flux data are - again - in high demand, the interest in such kind of ecosystem measurements is ever increasing. Lukas Hörtnagl, our data scientist, has been collecting download numbers for our datasets since 2015. In 2024 alone, datasets from our six long-term Swiss FluxNet sites were downloaded a record-high 8477 times, which is an increase of almost 30% compared to 2023 and the highest number of downloads since we started sharing the data. Most downloads were recorded for the ICOS Class 1 station Davos, followed by Oensingen and Chamau. In total, we share 129 site-years of data. With the recent announcement of the external page FLUXNET Data System Initiative, which will be fully operational by December 2025, we expect the interest in our data to furhter increase. (6 January 2025)

A warm welcome to Flora Zourek who joins our group as a doctoral student today! Flora will work in the EYE-CLIMA project. (6 January 2025)

Happy New Year! The Grassland Sciences group wishes you the very best for 2025! We are looking forward to another year of great teamwork, inspiring collaborations, bringing science, education, and outreach further together, and meeting many colleagues, students, school kids, and the public. Find out about our 2024 activities in our News Archive. (1 January 2025)