Spatial Genetics

Welcome to the Spatial Genetics group, which is affiliated with the Department of Geography and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Zurich. Together with Earth System Science, Remote Sensing, and Remote Sensing of Water Systems, we make up the Remote Sensing Laboratories, which have a long and successful history in Zurich.

We are part of the University Research Priority Program on Global Change and Biodiversity, partners in UPSCALE, collaborators of the Biology Integration Institute ASCEND, and contributors to sMile. We are initiators of "Genes from Space" and the the Earth Metabolome Initiative.

In Spatial Genetics, we want to know why plants are different, where it matters for ecology and for people.

Specifically, we study heritable and environmental variation in plants, some of Nature's master chemists; its consequences for living things that need plants to survive - which is most life on Earth, including us; and applications of this knowledge in managed systems.