Read our blog to learn about the how, why, and who of Crowther Lab.
Making the years count: quantifying tree longevity for climate change mitigation
Trees are some of Earth’s longest-living organisms. Yet, we still do not know a lot about the way they progress through life. Do trees ‘age’? What causes them to die? A study led by ETH Zurich d...
These seven underrated forest restoration techniques can outperform conventional methods
How can we improve forest restoration through low-tech and cost-effective methods? Our new study presents 7 underrated, but innovative forest restoration methods everyone should know about.
Scientists warn: we cannot achieve our Sustainable Development Goals without microorganisms
Our new study shows that microbial innovations have immense potential to tackle multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at once and contribute to a more sustainable future.
Understanding forest health means understanding the true nature of biodiversity
For the future health of forests, we have to think about biodiversity differently
Ecosystems they are a-changin: temperate forests, alternative stable states, and why they matter
A Q&A with Yibiao Zou, PhD student and lead author of "Positive feedbacks and alternative stable states in forest leaf types" Recent research indicates that the Amazon rainforest is losing its res...
The sounds of biodiversity and the power of provoking change
From bioacoustics research in Costa Rica to environmental activism, Giacomo is interested in biodiversity: how we can protect what we still have on Earth and what we can do to restore what we’ve los...
Threat of regeneration failure: logging is endangering the next generation of trees in rainforests
New study shows that restoration areas previously degraded by logging may face long-term regeneration failures due to high seedling mortality rates. Restoring logged rainforest areas is an important e...
Coding for tree taxonomy: TREEmendous
The R package to unify tree species names Solving today's ecological challenges requires combining datasets and knowledge from all over the globe. Unfortunately, this can be challenging when matching ...
Plant diversity increases closer to the equator – but not for ocean islands
Ocean islands do not follow observed biodiversity patterns One of the most basic patterns of biodiversity on Earth is that species diversity is highest near the equator, and declines toward the poles....
You can’t spell environmental without AI: how scientists are using LLMs
By: Dr. Gabriel Smith, lead scientist at Crowther Lab, Zurich While news of AI and its dangers frequent our headlines, Large Language Models – otherwise known as LLMs in the tech world – can also ...