WSL

Trees absorb tiny metal particles from the air and soil and deposit them in their tissues. This has been shown by an experiment conducted by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. These findings open up possibilities for detecting environmental pollution or even remedying it in the future.

How has the distribution of insects in Switzerland changed over the past 40 years? The range of many species has expanded, while that of a similar number has contracted. In particular, cold-adapted species have lost ground. These are the findings published in the journal Nature Communications.

For 50 years, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL has been collecting information on damage caused by extreme weather. Since then, it has recorded 27,000 severe weather events with estimated damage costs of around 15 billion Swiss francs. By far the greatest damage is caused by floods, hardly any municipality has been spared.

Can microbes from cold alpine soils break down plastic? This has been investigated in a study carried out by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. Such organisms could help break down and recycle plastic in the future.

Despite their differences, cold powder avalanches and hot pyroclastic flows during volcanic eruptions do have a number of things in common, not least their immense destructive power. Completely independently of one another, researchers from both fields have discovered that pulsating flows are responsible for the destructive power of these two natural hazards. A research project supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation is aiming to uncover the origin of this still unknown phenomenon.  

The sweet chestnut and the walnut are an economically important tree species in Europe. It is thanks to the ancient Romans that we find their fruits and wood so widespread today. Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL and the University of Bern have retraced the history of their distribution based on pollen and archaeological evidence.