ELE-ETHWSL.bsky.social

🎉 We did it — 500+ followers on LinkedIn!
A huge thank-you to everyone who supports ELE Group. Your energy keeps us moving forward! Join our LinkedIn community here: www.linkedin.com/company/ecos...

🌱 Fieldwork in Colombia!

Together with Fundación Universitaria de Popayán, Fundación Biodiversa de Colombia, and Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia, our group carried out a pilot eDNA project in Puracé National Park.

Read more: fup.edu.co/impulsamos-i...

🚀 Our guest Nikita Zychowska was a recent speaker at the COPL Lunch Seminar. She's a BSc student in AI at Johannes Kepler Universität Linz and the co-founder of the Astroyouth society. She'll stay in our group for two more weeks to work on the co-evolution of planets and life project.

In the recent publication, we show that combining multispecies primers with CRISPR-Dx—a workflow dubbed ampliscanning—matches the effectiveness of metabarcoding for detecting terrestrial mammals via eDNA in remote, high-alpine catchments.

Read the article: buff.ly/9rVajwt

🌋 Let's welcome Roos van Wees, a new postdoctoral researcher in our group.

Roos's background is in geomorphology, having examined how erosion shapes volcanic landscapes over time. In BurGeoN project, she will investigate how geomorphological dynamics influence biodiversity in mountain regions.

🌍 New publication alert!

In our latest piece in Nature Cities, we highlight how biodiversity modeling can support urban planning by balancing human well-being with nature. This helps cities meet biodiversity targets while ensuring access to healthy ecosystems.

Read the article: buff.ly/zeRBrYh

🎉 Warm welcome to Antonin Affholder, a new NOMIS fellow and postdoc in our group.

He will research the dynamical mechanisms that caused the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere to occur hundreds of millions of years after the emergence of photosynthesis.

Exciting research is coming, stay tuned!

New publication alert!

Together with colleagues, we show how combining eDNA with remote sensing can improve models of fish biodiversity in tropical rivers.

🔗 Read the article here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🌱 We’ve just completed the first sampling mission of Project Burgeon, supported by the SNSF. Over the summer, we explored multiple locations across the Puracé National Park to map the rich plant diversity of the Andean forest. We aim to uncover how geological dynamics shape mountain biodiversity.

Proud to see our work showcased at the Swiss Pavilion of the Expo 2025 in Osaka!

Over the years, we have co-designed robotic and eDNA technologies that can reveal the hidden presence of species and provide an early warning against invasive ones.

Image credits:

© FDFA, Presence Switzerland

🌱 This summer, we kicked off our first biodiversity monitoring initiative at ETH Zentrum and Hönggerberg using eDNA sampling. A big shoutout to everyone who made this day such a success!

Our PhD student Anna Lewkowicz is part of a team that recently raised nearly 13,000 CHF to organize an innovative astrobiology-themed hackathon. They're currently looking for hackathon co-hosts. DM us or write them an email if you'd like to get involved!

🌍 Congratulations to our PhD student Anna Lewkowicz for receiving an ESA Academy scholarship, which allowed her to participate in the XXI International School of Astrobiology ‘Josep Comas i Solà’: Origins to Organisms: Understanding Life’s Beginnings. Great job!

👨‍🎓 Let's welcome our new PhD student, Merlin Weiß! He works on the BiOcean5D project to understand how marine biodiversity changes across space, time, and environmental gradients. Welcome, and we hope you'll have a wonderful time here!

📚 For his MSc thesis at ETH Zurich, David Racine is developing a rapid biodiversity assessment method across various land uses. He uses eDNA swabbing to detect insects and mammals, and automated plant ID via the FlorID and Pl@ntNet APIs.

David, we are so proud of you and wish you all the best!

Our MSc student, Deniz Imir, is trying to better understand the relationship between landscape perception and biodiversity. He conducted eDNA-based biodiversity monitoring in various catchments across Switzerland (see the map) to assess the presence of mammals and insects in the region. Good luck!

Exciting to see biodiversity indicators now publicly available, a major step toward data-driven conservation. We are proud that members of ELE contributed to this important effort.
Learn more here:

Congratulations to Monika Goralczyk, who recently defended her PhD thesis "Uncovering mammal diversity patterns and tropical forest dynamics with environmental DNA". We are very proud of you and wish you all the best in the future!

📢 New research published in Ecological Modelling explores sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) forecasting of thermal stress for Swiss river fishes. The study aims to enhance our understanding of thermal stress impacts on freshwater ecosystems.

Read the full paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.ec...

#S2S

Species loss in key habitats accelerates regional food web disruption - Communications Biology Simulating extinctions across regional food webs reveals that losing species from one habitat— especially wetlands—can cascade to others, accelerating multi-habitat food web collapse, highlighting the...

🚨 Hot off the press! We show that species loss from key habitats (like wetlands) accelerates secondary extinction in regional multi-habitat food webs. Also, we show the importance of common species to regional food web robustness. doi.org/10.1038/s420...
#Ecology #FoodWebs #Biodiversity #Metaweb

Congratulations to Dr. Shuo Zong for defending his PhD thesis, "Combining remote sensing and eDNA for fish diversity monitoring in large river corridors". It was a pleasure having you on our team, and we wish you all the best in the future!

Congratulations to our PhD student Flurin Leugger, for having his work featured in Science News!

📢 New paper out in Nature Communications! Using sedimentary ancient DNA from 14 alpine lakes, this study reveals how wild and domesticated herbivores have shaped plant diversity in the Alps over the past 14,000 years.
Check it out here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#biodiversity #ancientDNA #alps

😎 We launched an eDNA lab in Bhutan!

The eDNA Laboratory for biodiversity research and conservation was officially launched at the College of Natural Resources, Royal University of Bhutan, on 25 April 2025. We thank all individuals and partners who contributed to it.

#eDNA #Bhutan #Biodiversity

📄 Congratulations to Théophile Sanchez and co-authors on the new publication "Deep-learning-based ordination for raw environmental DNA samples" in Methods in Ecology and Evolution!

Read more: doi.org/10.1111/2041...

#eDNA #deeplearning #biodiversity #ordination #AIinEcology #MethodsInEcology

📄 Congratulations to Monika Goralczyk and co-authors on the recent publication in Environmental DNA! "Combining eDNA Metabarcoding, Hydrology-Based Modeling and Camera Trap Datasets to Assess the Potential of River eDNA in Monitoring Terrestrial Mammals "

Read more: doi.org/10.1002/edn3...

We'd like to warmly welcome Song Zhang, a new visitor to the group. Song is a PhD student from Nanjing University, China. During his one-year stay, Song will work on the spatiotemporal distribution of river fish biodiversity, a topic that aligns beautifully with our ongoing projects. Welcome, Song!

🐟 How far and how fast can reef fish larvae really swim?

Our new paper presents a breakthrough method for tracking larval fish dispersal in situ using custom underwater loggers and open-source analytics.

🔗 Open access: doi.org/10.1111/2041...

🏝️ Please join us in giving a warm welcome to Dr. Kerstin Glaus, who has recently joined our group as a postdoctoral researcher!
She will play a key role in coordinating the WildinSync project and will continue to explore biodiversity changes and human impacts on marine ecosystems.
Welcome aboard!

📢 New paper out!
We used eDNA to track fish and mammal biodiversity along the Maroni River from 2017 to 2021, and the results are clear:

* Biodiversity decline continues
* Even slight deforestation shifts community structure
* No signs of recovery over time

🔗 Read more: doi.org/10.1016/j.sc...