Deepen and apply basic knowledge in forest soil ecology obtained in previous courses; includes autonomous study of selected questions in working groups and lectures on case studies.

This course introduces plant ecology. Through lectures, exercises and excursions, students will gain a broad vision of the cutting edge topics that are being researched and studied at the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH and WSL. This will be the base for a future dialog between the field of landscape architecture and the field of sciences.

The students are measuring carbon and nutrient fluxes in forest soils under a changing climate and land-use. In laboratory and field experiments, they are manipulating climatic conditions (temperature, drought) and quantify the response of C and N fluxes in soils, and plant-soil interactions. The results will be interpreted and discussed in the context of changes in climate and land-use.