From 11 to 24 September 2025, our team deployed an environmental DNA (eDNA) autosampler in Alptal, right next to the WSL experimental infrastructure. Check out the pictures!

🚀 Applications are open for HACK-4-SAGES, a digital twin in astrobiology hackathon 🗓️ 9 to 13 March 2026 🌍 Join online or in person 🏆 Win an all-expenses-paid trip to ETH Zurich ⏳ Deadline: 16 January 2026 🔗 hack-4-sages.org 💡 We also welcome mentors: tinyurl.com/5bpnxn2y

The WSL’s new exhibition “Breaking the Code” highlights ELE group research, revealing new insights into biodiversity. Check it out!

🌍 New publication alert! In Ecography, we show how landscape connectivity and climate dynamics shape plant endemism hotspots in the Hengduan Mountains. Endemism peaks at ~3,000–4,000 m, highlighting the complex interplay of geography and biodiversity. Read the article here: buff.ly/AfI5xOk

💪 Check this out! The head of our group, Loïc Pellissier, was recently featured on Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia Instagram! Here's the link: buff.ly/45HiX64

🎉 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

🚨 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...

A warm welcome to Carl Nico Oñate, a visiting PhD student from Mindanao State University in the Philippines! He is studying freshwater fishes using eDNA analyses in the Lakes on Mindanao Island. He will compare distribution of species among lakes and factors affecting their distribution. Welcome!

🐟 Can we tell how old a fish is without even seeing it? Turns out, yes. Our latest study demonstrates that epigenetic clocks built from environmental DNA (eDNA) can predict the age of seabass larvae with a median error of just 2.6 days! 🔗 Read the paper here: doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

🧬 Let's give a warm welcome to Arismedi Prado, a PhD student from the University of Tolima in Colombia! Arismedi is visiting our group for a month to conduct DNA extraction and sequencing from fish tissues and eDNA. Bienvenida, and welcome to the team!

🐠 Check out our latest study by Andrea Polanco, Romane Rozanski et al.: "A Confidence Scoring Procedure for eDNA Metabarcoding Records and Its Application to a Global Marine Fish Dataset" Link: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

We've computed high-resolution extinction risk maps for aquatic & terrestrial species across Switzerland. 🌍🔬 They highlight the importance of each pixel for conserving species richness at the national scale. 🏞️🐟 #SPEED2ZERO #Biodiversity #Conservation

Check out our new publication We generated 156 sequences of the mitochondrial 12S gene adapted to the “Teleo” barcodes from fishes sampled in the Bay of Biscay (BoB; Northeast Atlantic, France). Check out the full article at: doi.org/10.1111/1440...

The Laboratory of Ecosystems and Landscape Evolution at the ETH Zurich is looking for candidates to fill a post-doctoral position as part of the fully funded SNSF Consolidator project “Burgeon”. Check out the detail at: jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...

Meet Anna! our new PhD student! In her PhD, she will be working on the Origins of Life (OoL) as part of the PANDORA project. Her approach involves synthesizing and analyzing all the simulation data to identify potential locations and conditions that could have allowed life to originate.

Check out our new publication: We classify global ecoregions into dependent, resilient, and vulnerable and show that a combined 9.4% of the surface of all terrestrial ecosystems is susceptible to transformation due to cyclone pattern changes. Link to full article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Publication alert: Our recent study shows that reef fish communities can support nature and people simultaneously, challenging the idea that conservation must choose one over the other. Read the full article here: www.cell.com/one-earth/ab...

Publication alert: A spatial matrix factorization method to characterize ecological assemblages as a mixture of unobserved sources: An application to fish eDNA surveys. Check out full article at: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

🌱 Major Milestone for Conservation in Bhutan! 🌏 The eDNA Clean Lab at the College of Natural Resources, Bhutan, is now fully operational, supported by ETH Zurich. Excitingly, the lab’s first eDNA analyses are already underway to study biodiversity from water. #Biodiversity #Conservation

Pre-print alert! 🚨 Excited to share my second PhD chapter: species link habitats through food webs. We show that removing species from one habitat (e.g., wetlands) can cascade across the multi-habitat regional food web, reducing its robustness. 🌿🐝🐦🦌 Check it out here: doi.org/10.21203/rs....

Publication alert: “Projecting Untruncated Climate Change Effects on Species' Climate Suitability: Insights From an Alpine Country”: Our results indicated important effects of projected climate changes on species' climate suitability. Read full article at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Publication alert: The socioeconomic and environmental niche of protected areas reveals global conservation gaps and opportunities. Researchers identify potential versus unrealistic conservation gains, favourable and unfavourable to protected area establishment. Read more at: lnkd.in/dfgbaBdT