(top-left) Alvaro Gaytán successfully defended his PhD thesis on ‘The effect of climate on oak-based species interactions’, (middle, top) The 20th (!) year of the annual survey of leaf miners, gallers and pathogens on the island Wattkast, (top-right) Beyene Zewdie preparing samples of coffee leaf rust-infected leaves for next generation sequencing, (bottom-left) PhD student Firew Bekele riding horse to his field site to interview smallholder farmers on the reasons why some parts of the landscape have become reforested, and others deforested, during the past decades and (bottom-right) Ayco Tack sampling biodiversity in streams in a new water project in southwestern Ethiopia.