TV reportage in nano
TreeNet members contribute to TV documentary The TV format nano (ZDF, SRF, 3-Sat) reports about the record high temperatures in 2023. Marcus Maeder (ZHdK) and Roman Zweifel (WSL) give insights…
Fore(st)cast – Nowcast and predict forest condition
Fore(st)cast is a joint project of WSL and SDSC It combines the advantages of machine learning methods with the ecological knowledge produced with forest monitoring infrastructure Forests host about 90%…
Annual TreeNet Meeting 2024
This year’s TreeNet annual meeting took place at the WSL in Birmensdorf on November 12, 2024. Program_TreeNet_2024 Find links to presentations here: Zweifel and Wilhelm Aeberhard Basler Buchmann Floriancic Walthert…
Stem radius changes do not show a moon signal
Publication in Scientific Reports by Tumajer et al, with TreeNet contribution Dendrometers challenge the ‘moon wood concept’ by elucidating the absence of lunar cycles in tree stem radius oscillation Wood…
Stillberg Davos – a new partner of TreeNet
Stillberg reforestation site becomes TreeNet’s newest partner Text and photo Esther Frei As part of the EU project FORWARDS (funded by SERI), which aims to prototype a future European observatory…
Wasserdefizite im Wald brauchen Zeit um behoben zu werden
BIRMENSDORF/ZÜRICH: WASSERDEFIZITE IM WALD BRAUCHEN ZEIT UM WIEDER BEHOBEN ZU WERDEN Sofia Pignatelli TreeNet zusammen mit LWF und Waldlabor in TELE Z aktuell vom 28.08.2023: Der Wald leidet an den…
In einem Sommer der Extreme kam die Schweiz glimpflich davon
In einem Sommer der Extreme kam die Schweiz glimpflich davon Artikel in der NZZ (26.8.2023) über den Sommer 2023 im Rückblick. TreeNet gibt darin Auskunft über den Zustand der Schweizer…
Dead trees around the world are shocking scientists
Dead trees around the world are shocking scientists Forests once deemed resilient are suffering surprising die-offs. To predict the fate of the world’s woods in the face of climate change,…
Tracking the growth of a decapitated tree
When is a tree considered dead? This question renders over 35 000 results with a popular search engine. From amateur gardeners to lawmakers, it is of practical concern to many,…
Towards monitoring stem growth phenology from space
New publication in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Towards monitoring stem growth phenology from space with high resolution satellite data by Jan Eitel et al https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109549 Abstract Radial stem growth…
New Publication in New Phytologist
Daytime stomatal regulation in mature temperate trees prioritizes stem rehydration at night By Richard Peters et al. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.18964 Summary Trees remain sufficiently hydrated during drought by closing stomata and reducing…
TreeNet in RSI ‘Il giardino di Albert’
Reportage in Swiss Italian TV RSI with input from TreeNet Siccità sotto la lente 2022, l’anno più caldo e asciutto mai registrato dal 1864 in Ticino Drought in focus: 2022,…
Networking the forest infrastructure towards near real-time monitoring – A white paper
New article in the journal Science of The Total Environment on the need to network existing forest monitoring infrastructure to enable near real-time forest condition reporting (nowcasting). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162167 Highlights •…
TreeNet goes AI
Reconstructing radial stem size changes of trees with machine learning by Mirko Luković (EMPA), Roman Zweifel (WSL), Guillaume Thiry (ETHZ), Ce Zhang (ETHZ) and Mark Schubert (EMPA) Publication in the Journal of the…
TreeNet in Swiss Radio SRF News
TreeNet Nowcasts in use Reena Thelly from Swiss Radio SRF interviewed Katrin Meusburger (hydrologist) and Roman Zweifel (ecophysiologist), both WSL, on their assessment of how Swiss forests coped with the…
‘WaldLab Forest Experimental Site’ is a new partner of TreeNet
The site The “Waldlabor” ecohydrological experimental site is located at Zürich Hönggerberg in close proximity to the ETH Hönggerberg Campus. The field site is embedded in the larger “Waldlabor” framework,…
TreeNet 10-year anniversary conference, 27-28 June 2022
The conference On June 27/28, 2022, the TreeNet 10-year anniversary conference was taking place in the Basel region in Switzerland. The conference focused on the assessment of tree growth with different experimental…
Register now – TreeNet anniversary conference
On June 27/28, 2022, the 10th anniversary event of TreeNet was taking place in the Basel region in Switzerland in form of a conference in Bad Bubendorf and an excursion…
Publication in Nature Communications
European heatwave led to stem dehydration but not to consistent growth reductions in forests. Drought and growth indicators in the year 2018 in comparison to the two years before The…
A few days determine the growth of temperate trees
Publication in Ecology Letters A few days determine the growth of temperate trees – In addition to high soil moisture and air humidity, the day length is particularly decisive. The length…
TreeNet Annual Meeting 2021
TreeNet Annual Meeting 2021 The TreeNet community met on 18 November 2021 in Ittigen/Bern for its annual meeting. This time, the host was the Federal Office for the Environment FOEN. The…
TreeNet is nowcasting
Near real-time predictions of tree growth and water deficit TreeNet now produces daily nowcasts of tree growth and water deficit in Switzerland. This is most likely the first comprehensive publication…
Nitrogen deposition – at what point is it too much for tree growth?
Publication in Wald & Holz (in German) Nitrogen is a nutrient that would naturally be in short supply in most forests. Today, however, a lot of reactive nitrogen is carried…
TreeNet – The biological drought and growth indicator network
New paper out about the TreeNet infrastructure in Frontiers The paper in Frontiers TreeNet – The biological drought and growth indicator network describes the setup of the research and monitoring network…
TreeNet in the media July 2021
The rainy period raised the question of what happens to forest trees during this wet summer. TreeNet gave some answers in interviews with Swiss Radio SRF and Tierwelt magazine. o…
TreeNet in the media – June 2021
The New Phytologist article ‘Why trees grow at night’, based on TreeNet data (2011-2018), has received a lot of attention in the Swiss and German media. Here is a list…
Publication in New Phytologist – Why trees grow at night
The timing of diel stem growth of mature forest trees is still largely unknown, as empirical data with high temporal resolution have not been available so far. Consequently, the effects…
Publication in FORESTS – treenetproc
Radial stem size changes, measured with automated dendrometers at intra-daily resolution, offer great potential to link environmental conditions with tree physiology at the seasonal scale. Such measurements need to be time-aligned, cleaned…
TreeNet Annual Meeting 2020
The TreeNet Annual Meeting 2020 is history. Thanks to everybody who contributed to make this a successful (virtual) event! ProgramTNAM2020
Dataset ‘irrigation experiment Pfynwald’ to download
The dataset associated to the recent publication in New Phytologist ‘Determinants of legacy effects in pines – implications from an irrigation-stop experiment’ by Zweifel et al 2020 is available for…
Article in New Phytologist – Determinants of legacy effects in pines
Tree responses to altered water availability range from immediate (e.g. stomatal regulation) to delayed (e.g. crown size adjustment). The interplay of the different response times and processes, and their effects on long-term…
TreeNet – wann wachsen unsere Bäume?
TreeNet – wann wachsen unsere Bäume? R. Zweifel, S. Etzold, L. Walthert, R. Köchli, W. Eugster Der radiale Stammzuwachs von Holz und Rinde von Bäumen kann bis heute nur teilweise auf…
TreeNet in Waldschutzüberblick 2019
TreeNet zeigt erste Daten zum radialen Baumwachstum im Jahr 2019 im Waldschutzüberblick 2019
TreeNet in the News
Wald & Holz TreeNet – Wann wachsen unsere Bäume? Der radiale Stammzuwachs von Holz und Rinde von Bäumen kann bis heute nur teilweise auf Umweltbedingungen zurückgeführt werden. Das Forschungsnetzwerk TreeNet…
TreeNet – am Puls der Bäume in Wald & Holz
TreeNet – am Puls der Bäume R. Zweifel, S. Etzold, S. Braun, R. Köchli, G. Hoch, W. Eugster, L. Walthert* Im Forschungs-Netzwerk TreeNet werden seit rund zehn Jahren Wachstum und Wasserhaushalt von Bäumen mit Punktdendrometern erforscht. Alle…
How did Swiss forest trees respond to the hot summer 2015?
Susanne Burri, Elena Haeler, Werner Eugster, Matthias Haeni, Sophia Etzold, Lorenz Walthert, Sabine Braun, Roman Zweifel Download article Central Europe experienced an exceptionally hot summer in 2015. The area of…
First preliminary results about the effects of the drought summer 2018 on forest trees
Tree water deficit (TWD) The extremely dry summer 2018 left clear effects in forest trees. Trees at about 25 of the 30 measured TreeNet-sites showed record-high values of TWD exceeding…
TV-Report in RTS 1
La mise au point: La canicule tue nos forest? TreeNet contributes scientific information about the damages induced by the drought summer 2018
TreeNet – comprehensive report about the first five years of measurement is out
Etzold, S.; Zweifel, R., 2018: TreeNet – Daten und Analysen der ersten fünf Messjahre. Mit Beiträgen von: Haeni, M.; Burri, S.; Braun, S.; Walthert, L.; Dawes, M.; Buchmann, N.; Haeler,…
Current drought effects on forest trees in Switzerland (5)
Rain over the weekend reduced the tree water deficit (TWD) in most trees of all species. However, we are far from an average situation. Most trees are still showing TWDs…
Current drought effects on forest trees in Switzerland (4)
Drought intensity reaches a new (last?) peak in this summer. Forest trees of all regions investigated are heavily affected according to our drought-indicator TWD (tree water deficit). The values are…
Current drought effects on forest trees in Switzerland (3)
Drought in Switzerland is further intensifying. Particularly forest trees in the lowlands (Mittelland) show steadily increasing tree water deficit-induced stem shrinkage (TWD, Baumwasserdefizit). The values are far above the TWDs…
Current drought effects on forest trees in Switzerland (2)
Rain over the weekend brought some stress relief to forest trees in Switzerland, particularly in the Northern Alps and in the Valais (see situation on July 16). In these two…
Current drought effects on forest trees in Switzerland (1)
Trees in the Northern Alps and in the Valais show distinctly higher tree water deficit-induced stem shrinkage (TWD) than in the years before. We conclude that the investigated tree species…
Quickviews of current raw data available
TreeNet raw data of the past five days are freely browsable. Try the following links to see the latest data of individual dendrometers of the entire network all available sensors…
Are there growth trends of the Swiss tree species over the past 5 years?
We are currently analyzing the drivers of wood growth of Swiss forest trees over the past five years (preliminary results). Figure 1 Growth trends of the main tree species in…
We are moving …
TreeNet.info is moving its data base and the related processing platform to a new server. Please apologize for inconvenience. All services including online data display and dendrometer processing tool will…
Are trees able to grow in periods of stem shrinkage?
Publication in New Phytologist about separating stem radius measurements into growth and tree water deficit Link to article Summary Separating continuously measured stem radius (SR) fluctuations into growth-induced irreversible stem expansion (GRO)…
Dendrometer processing tool online now
TreeNet.info offers a public tool to process your own raw dendrometer data now. Your dendrometer data will be aligned, cleaned for jumps and outliers, gap-filled for short periods <3 hours,…
TreeNet in Swiss Newspaper
Wie man die Bäume wachsen hört – Das faszinierende Universum Wald bietet viele Geheimnisse: Seiner komplexen Natur sind Wissenschaftler nun auch mit Hörgeräten auf der Spur. Artikel in der Sonntagszeitung,…
When do trees grow (3)?
Radial stem growth of trees (GRO) occurs mainly during the night. Daylight hours show systematically lower growth. The columns in the figure below indicate how much of the annual growth…
When do trees grow (2)?
Tree species have their specific climatic niches in which they grow. Norway spruce at the subalpine site Seehornwald Davos grows best at temperatures around 12°C whereas Scotts pine shows optimal…
When do trees grow (1)?
Radial stem growth of trees is limited to a relatively short time period of the year in spring and summer. The timing of the growth period depends on site and…
Radial stem variations in PCE
Radial stem variations – a source of tree physiological information not fully exploited yet by Roman Zweifel (Plant, Cell and Environment, 2015, doi: 10.1111/pce.12613) Link to the Journal pdf of…
Hitzewelle in der Schweiz
Trotz grosser Hitze zeigen die Schweizer Wälder noch keinen generellen Trockenstress. Die Bandbreite des biologischen Trockenstressindikators TWD (‘tree water deficit’) ist allerdings sehr gross und variiert stark mit Standort und…
TreeNet in Swiss Newspapers
Tierwelt, 4. Juni 2015: Forscher schauen 300 Bäumen beim Wachsen zu (Martina Huber) Südostschweiz, 22. Juni 2015: Dem Wachstum auf der Spur (Martina Huber)
Eleven new TreeNet sites in Switzerland
In collaboration with the research unit Forest Soils and Biogeochemistry of WSL Birmensdorf, TreeNet greatly increases the number of its Swiss sites. The joint sites link the soil research activities…
Publication in BioGeoSciences
Zielis S, Etzold S, Zweifel R, Eugster W, Haeni M, Buchmann N. 2014. NEP of a Swiss subalpine forest is significantly driven not only by current but also by previous…
Publication in New Phytologist
Zweifel R., Eugster W., Etzold S., Dobbertin M., Buchmann N. and Häsler R. 2010. Link between continuous stem radius changes and net ecosystem productivity of a subalpine Norway spruce forest…