News
Patrick Möhl defended his PhD thesis
Patrick Möhl successfully defended his PhD thesis and was awarded the grade "summe cum laude”!
Congratulations to Cedric Zahnd on his PhD defense
Cedric Zahnd successfully defended his PhD thesis on May 30th. In his thesis, which was conducted within the SNF project ‘EXPLOTREE’, Cedric investigated the influence of microclimatic gradients in mature tree canopies on leaf phenology and…
New paper on the stomatal regulation in trees prioritizing stem rehydration at night
Richard L. Peters led the work as part of the TREEFLOW project, in close collaboration with Ansgar Kahmen and Kathy Steppe, which was recently published in New Phytologist. The study explores why different tree species show different…
New paper on the covariation between hydrogen and oxygen stable isotopes in organic compounds in eudicot plants
Jochem Baan led the work as a part of his PhD, with co-authors Meisha Holloway-Phillips, Daniel B. Nelson, and Ansgar Kahmen, which was recently published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. The study explores the extent to which large…
PPE at EGU 2023
Several members of the PPE group will present their latest science at this year's EGU general assembly. In case you will be at the meeting in Vienna, come and see our talks and posters!. EGU23-1232 | Orals | BG3.2 | Highlight Carbon…
Nikita Häfeli successfully defended her MSc thesis!
We congratulate Nikita Häfeli for successfully defending her MSc today. In her master's thesis “Experimentally separating drought from heat stress in European beech trees” Nikita used the phytotron facility of the PPE group to…
New perspective article on alpine treeline theory published
Christian Körner and Günter Hoch published an article in the Journal of Biogeography that synthesizes the current concept of treeline theory. The authors promote the strict application of a dual niche concept to explain the treeline…
New Book Contribution on Boreal Forest Ecology
A new book that our PPE group contributed to appeared this week (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-15988-6). The book aims to revise the principles of boreal forest ecosystem management in terms of silviculture, natural…
New paper in STOTEN
A new paper that our group contributed to appeared in the journal Science of the Total Environment (STOTEN) this week (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162167). The paper summarises discussions from the TreeNet 10th anniversary…
Two new PhD students joined the PPE team
With David Steger and Tobias Zhorzel, two new PhD students joined the PPE group in the last weeks. In their research, David and Tobias will investigate the sensitivity and acclimation potential of mature temperate tree species to…
Simon Engeler successfully defended his master's thesis!
We congratulate Simon for successfully defending his master's thesis and for passing his exam on Feb 16th 2023. In his thesis, Simon tested if spruce trees that died in the 2018 drought at our SCC II research site were different from trees…
Congratulations to Ursina Studer for passing her MSc exam!
Ursina's master's thesis investigated the pollen and ovule porduction of several herbacious species along an elevational gradient. From the manual counts of both traits she concluded that they are more conservative than expected, and that…
Niek ten Cate joins the PPE group as the new site manager at the SCC II site
We are pleased to welcome Niek ten Cate as a new member of the PPE group! Niek has joined our group in January 2023 as the new site manager and crane operator at the SCC II forest crane facility. He is a trained arborist, and we are looking…
New paper on tree phenology and microclimate in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
Cedric Zahnd, Günter Hoch and co-authors published a new study on how vertical microclimatic canopy gradients cause phenological variations within mature tree crowns. Tree crowns are exposed to strong vertical gradients in light,…