Last week, we properly kicked off the fieldwork season. Under a bright April sun, we made our way to ‘De Boeije’ – a cosy, somewhat hidden farm right on our own campus at Utrecht Science Park.
‘De Boeije’ and its golden seas of dandelions on a sunny April day
I’m not sure how many of the thousands of people passing through the campus know about this little gem, but it’s well worth a lunchtime walk to the southwest corner on a sunny day.
This time, though, we were there for more than just a walk. We’re monitoring biodiversity as part of our global Ecological Fractal Network. Across the site, we sample vegetation in 1 × 1 m plots at multiple spatial scales to understand how biodiversity is distributed – and, crucially, how it can be maximized across those scales.
Vegetation monitoring. This field harvested around eight plant species per square meter
This hidden farm is one of the project’s flagship sites. Here, we are not just observing change, we are actively helping to shape it. De Boeije has been made into a Living Lab as part of Utrecht University’s Pathways to Sustainability. Within this Living Lab, we’ll collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders – from farmers and neighbours to schools and scientists – to experiment with more biodiverse and sustainable forms of agriculture.
Funny thing: we were already monitoring biodiversity here, and that monitoring has now neatly turned into the monitoring of baseline conditions, before these changes will take place. As the photos show, the farm is already relatively low-intensity, but we expect (and hope) to see further substantial improvements in the coming years.
And when those changes happen, we’ll be there to quantify them!
Microrefugia. It’s a tempting concept, and one that has quickly moved from theory to the frontline of conservation. As climates warm, these small, buffered places may allow species to persist where they otherwise couldn’t.
So, that’s simple enough: find the cold spots, and you find the refuges. But it’s not that simple.
Most approaches still start from macroclimate: where is it getting warmer, and where might conditions remain suitable? But species don’t experience climate at the scale of weather stations. They experience it at the scale of meters – shaped by topography, vegetation, and local conditions. Even where macroclimate suggests decline, microhabitats can buffer change, creating pockets where species may still persist.
So how do you actually find those places?
Lanzarote, one of the drier Canary Islands. Are there any microrefugia here?
That’s exactly what we tried to tackle in a new paper coming out of the PhD work of Juan Jose García-Alvarado.
From cold spots to real refuges
In this study, we tried to move beyond simply mapping “cool places” and instead asked ourselves:
Where are species most likely to persist?
Rather than treating refugia as fixed features, we defined a probability of refugial function. This combines climate change with ecological context, shifting from binary maps to gradients — some places are simply more likely to act as refuges than others.
We tested this approach in a landscape that almost feels designed for it: the Canary Islands. Steep gradients, strong contrasts, and a remarkable diversity of climates over short distances. A perfect playground for microrefugia and the better holiday experience.
The climate component of our approach was defined a bit differently than usual. Instead of asking where climate remains suitable, we used climate analogues to track how conditions shift over time. By comparing present and future climates, we identified where climates are projected to disappear, and where future climates already exist today but may become rare. This allowed us to pinpoint locations that retain rare or disappearing climate conditions – key candidates for refugia.
We then added fine-scale environmental predictors (terrain, moisture, exposure, and vegetation) to capture how landscapes can buffer these changes. Because ultimately, refugia don’t emerge from climate alone, but from how climate interacts with the landscape.
After doing all that, what I find most fascinating is how strongly these microrefugia vary across space.
Across the Canary Islands, we see a clear east–west gradient. On the drier, older eastern islands, microrefugia are mostly driven by topography: rugged terrain creating local pockets of buffering. These islands were also more homogeneous climatically, and overall have a lower capacity to host refugia. Not surprisingly, perhaps, if you look at the desert-like landscape above.
Moving west, vegetation becomes increasingly important, adding a much stronger layer of buffering on top of topography. Same concept, very different mechanisms, and thus very different context for the organisms living there!
Once you have these maps, the next question asks itself: what can we do with them?
We explored this for La Palma, for example. Are these refugia already protected? Where should conservation efforts focus? The answer is… interesting, and helps open up a debate for future conservation of the region: some key refugial areas fall outside the current protected network, particularly in fragmented laurel forests and regions under strong human pressure. At the same time, there are clear opportunities to improve connectivity and strengthen the existing network – if we know where to look.
Our maps are a step forward, but of course not the final answer. Identifying refugia is only part of the story – linking them to species, management, and real-world decisions remains a major challenge.
But it’s an important step already: from mapping cold places to the multidimensionality of what defines where landscapes can actually hold on to life.
Over the past months, we’ve been working hard on the preparations for INNATURE, an EU-funded project on nature based solutions in urban areas. The mission of this project is straightforward: co-create nature-based solutions to promote both biodiversity and social inclusion in Europe’s urban living spaces.
What makes INNATURE unique is how many people with different backgrounds are included.
Local communities, researchers, artists, designers, policy-makers, and ecologists all share their knowledge and perspectives. Combining all these strengths, we aim to provide sustainable, beautiful, and inclusive solutions in order to help cities respond to climate change and strengthen people’s connection to nature close to home. A complex web of voices and opinions to navigate, but – we hypothesize – resulting in more robust and beneficial solutions at the end.
Five locations, five stories
We’re trying out this co-creation experiment through five demonstration cases across Europe: Belgium, the UK, Denmark, Finland, and Romania. Each case faces its own ecological challenges.
The demo case of Borgerhout, a city investing a lot in urban greening
Some of the cases focus on climate change-induced effects, such as stormwater floods or droughts, while others tackle biodiversity loss, for example, supporting endangered species whose habitats are disappearing. But ecological challenges rarely come alone. In several of the cases, people feel disconnected from nature. We see things like landscape blindness (not noticing the nature that is there) and the loss of local knowledge, such as how rainwater can be captured and used wisely. Tackling the biodiversity loss thus needs to come as much from ecological decisions as from social action.
Each different case requires widely different nature-based solutions, reflecting the complexity and uniqueness of our urban areas. Across the demonstration cases, interventions range from greenifying streets, to planting zigzag clover to support an endangered moth, to vertical storm management, storing floodwater in aboveground measures. While some cases already have a clear plan and focus, others are still brainstorming options and are defining what they want to achieve.
Preparations: more than choosing solutions
Greening the city needs to start small, but can create a beautiful ripple effect if implemented well
But planning nature-based solutions is not only about deciding what you want to implement. It is also about agreeing on:
When to implement
Where exactly implementations will take place
How we will measure whether they work
That’s also where monitoring enters the picture, and that’s exactly where we take the wheel.
Monitoring
In most of the cases, there are two phases you go through when monitoring:
Baseline monitoring before implementation (what is the situation right now?)
Follow-up monitoring after implementation (what has changed?)
To know if these changes were indeed the effect of the interventions, you also need comparison areas:
A negative control site: a similar area where nothing changes, and/or
A positive control site: an area that already has the conditions we want to achieve
Part of the preparation work has been to map these control sites, but it’s also about deciding what we measure there. Across all cases, monitoring microclimate (both local temperature and humidity) is the main focus of interest, together with monitoring biodiversity (plants, insects), and sometimes soil health. While microclimate can be measured using sensors and soil health with soil samples, for biodiversity monitoring we need people, and that’s when social engagement becomes important.
Social engagement: turning monitoring into participation
INNATURE is not only about the ecological side: it’s also about making the local community feel involved and engaged with the nature in their surroundings. That’s why we have been carefully thinking about how monitoring can become a moment of connection.
In these cases, residents will be involved in measuring microclimate in these implementation and control sites, and in several cases also in backyards, with results visible on a digital platform. By seeing data change over time, such as seeing their own street getting cooler after greening, the impact becomes more tangible.
Simultaneously, this platform also supports biodiversity registration, not only during events like a bioblitz (where people try to document as many species as possible in a certain area), but also over the longer term. One idea we’re exploring is gamification: using gaming elements, such as receiving points when you register five species, to make participation fun and motivating. In this way, residents can become aware of the actual biodiversity that their neighbourhood harbours. They get curious about it, learn what species are called, and see it as something they care for.
Beyond microclimate and biodiversity, this platform could also become a space where people share experiences and observations about their neighbourhood, such as highlighting beautiful locations or reporting fly-tipping. In this way, the project can support nature stewardship and strengthen the feeling that urban nature is something shared and protected together.
So, what’s next?
Preparations: there’s more to it than you first see. We have our hands full with ordering sensors, meetings with each case to co-create and fine-tune our plans, and preparing upcoming site visits where sensors will be placed and monitoring will begin.
With five demonstration cases running in parallel, coordination is a project in itself, but it’s also one of the fun parts. With each case being unique and contributing its own insights, together they build a broader understanding of how nature-based solutions can support both biodiversity and belonging in the spaces where we live.
A simple question, perhaps. But one for which the data has long remained elusive. Sound is a complex, multi-dimensional beast, and capturing how people actually experience it is not straightforward.
In a new paper stemming from De Oorzaak and led by Ablenya Barros, we now take a stab at answering that question. We asked close to 4000 citizens across Flanders to take a short walk outside, listen closely, and report how they perceived the soundscape around them, including which sound sources they heard.
Pretty simple, right?
Set-up of the paper, from soundwalks over machine learning models to key findings about the role of roads and green spaces.
For participants it took only a few minutes, but the resulting dataset is a gift that keeps on giving. In this newest paper, we threw a machine-learning model at the data to disentangle the spatiotemporal context behind people’s perception: why do some places and moments sound pleasant, while others do not?
Spatial distribution of our soundwalks across Flanders, with each observation coloured by the perceived ‘pleasantness’ as reported by the participant. The map itself is coloured by population density.
In essence, we ran two analyses.
The first focused on the role of sound sources in defining two key soundscape metrics: pleasantness and eventfulness (the official descriptors used in soundscape research). As expected – and consistent with earlier work – these models performed quite well. Pleasantness correlated strongly and negatively with traffic, industry, construction noise, alarms, and priority vehicles. On the positive side, natural sounds and silence clearly improved perceived pleasantness. Human sounds and music were more divisive: a little can be enjoyable, but a lot of either was often perceived as unpleasant.
The relationship between reported sound sources and perceived pleasantness, coloured by the relationship.
The second analysis looked at the geospatial context of these soundscape experiences. This is where the real novelty lies, because it helps us identify where problems occur and which spatial factors might help solve them.
These models were less predictive than the first ones, which makes sense. It has shown to be much easier to link people’s subjective soundscape experience to the sound sources they report themselves than to the messy complexity of the real world. Still, similar patterns emerged. Proxies of traffic, such as road network density and distance to highways, explained a large portion of the variation in soundscape experience. Meanwhile, a higher percentage of green space in the surrounding area increased perceived pleasantness.
Interestingly, road density and nearby green space also influenced eventfulness. More nature and fewer roads generally resulted in a less eventful environment – and those quieter environments were typically perceived as more pleasant. One could think that eventfulness would be appreciated as well, but in general, we’re all really looking for the sound of ‘boring, quite nature’.
Where the sound is pleasant
Putting all this together allows us to do something pretty cool: predict where in Flanders soundscapes are likely to be most pleasant.
The role of nature is clearly crucial. More green space within a 500-metre radius around you significantly improves the soundscape experience. But there is an important catch: if that same 500-metre buffer is filled with roads, the positive effect of green space essentially disappears, as shown in the figure below.
Pleasantness (colours) as a function of the ratio not green and the length of the road network within a 500 m area. Green was beneficial (yellow), but only in areas with few roads.
So yes – green helps. But only when it is sufficiently far from road traffic.
Again and again we thus see the disruptive effect of traffic on our soundscapes. But we also repeatedly see the positive role of greenery – even if it often struggles to compete with the dominance of traffic noise.
Clearly, there is still work to be done to improve our soundscapes. Luckily, we have not only identified the problems but also proposed solutions. Recently, we published the 200-page final report of De Oorzaak (in Dutch, unfortunately). It contains an extensive section with policy advice and recommendations on how to create healthier and more pleasant soundscapes across Flanders.
This paper might be the furthest I have ever ventured from my core scientific discipline. And honestly? That feels very much right.
I started my academic life as an ecologist, fascinated by where plants live, why they live there, and how small-scale environmental variation shapes those patterns. That curiosity gradually pulled me toward microclimate: the fine-grained temperature, moisture, and radiation conditions organisms actually experience. From forests and mountains, it was only a small step to start asking similar questions in cities. And from there, to realize that if we really want dense, high-resolution environmental data, we cannot do it alone.
Alpine plants – where it all started for me
Enter citizen science.
Projects like CurieuzeNeuzen in de Tuin showed me how powerful large-scale public participation can be for environmental monitoring. Thousands of gardens suddenly became part of a distributed sensor network.
From ecology to microclimate monitoring, to citizen science – largely with those ‘garden daggers’, as our citizen participants called the TOMST microclimate loggers
This hard-core citizen science project is what eventually brought me to De Oorzaak, a similarly large citizen science project on environmental noise. While noise itself is an environmental variable, the project deliberately went much further – into perception, experience, and health. Working in this space meant exciting collaborations with psychologists, communication scientists, and health researchers, and learning new ways of thinking about data, causality, and impact.
Installing environmental sensors with citizens – the clear connection between my microclimate work and De Oorzaak.
Perhaps not a surprise: much of this scientific “wandering” happened during my postdoc years – a phase that is, for many young(is) scientists, defined by short contracts, shifting funding opportunities, and a constant need to adapt. Each new position came with its own thematic focus, and rather than resisting that, I embraced it. And it’s only slowly that I started to realise: the uncertainties around funding did not just shape where I worked, but also what I worked on. Looking back, this period pushed me to become far more interdisciplinary than I would ever have planned on paper.
It also means that I now find myself as a co-author on a paper in PLOS Digital Health.
Smartphones, sleep, and a more nuanced story
Smartphones are often portrayed as the villains of modern sleep. We have all heard the narrative: screens keep us awake, notifications fragment our nights, and scrolling in bed equals bad sleep.
What I find refreshing about this study is that it steps away from that simple storyline.
Smartphone use per day (left) and in bed per day (right) among our participants, as obtained objectively from their iPhone and Apple Watch tracking data
Using donated data from participants’ own iPhones and Apple Watches, the ‘De Oorzaak’-team followed 68 participants across 14 consecutive days, tracking:
Total sleep duration
Sleep stages (REM, core, deep)
Total smartphone use
Smartphone use while in bed
And the patterns that emerged were nicely nuanced.
More total smartphone use during the day predicted more smartphone use in bed – no big surprise there for anyone, I guess. But more in-bed smartphone use was associated with slightly more total sleep that same night. That does not mean scrolling causes better sleep. But it does challenge the automatic assumption that phone use in bed is always harmful.
One interpretation is that some people may use their phone as part of a wind-down routine. Another is that longer sleep following in-bed phone use reflects compensation after poorer sleep earlier. This, we can’t say based on the limited data we have. What we can say, however, is the following: the relationship is more complex than “phones ruin sleep.”
Perhaps even more important, the strongest effects were not day-to-day fluctuations but stable differences between people. In other words, habits matter. Some individuals consistently combine higher phone use with particular sleep patterns, and understanding those habitual profiles may be more informative than focusing only on nightly variation.
Back in ecology – but not the same ecology
Today, I am firmly back in the ecology camp. I once again spend most of my time thinking about biodiversity, microclimate, and how organisms experience their environment.
But I am doing so with a very different toolbox than when I started.
Those postdoc detours into citizen science, environmental monitoring, and human-centered data have fundamentally reshaped how I approach ecology. I now see interdisciplinarity not as a side quest, but as core infrastructure, which is very helpful to make the necessary change happen to save that precious biodiversity I’m working on.
So yes, I now co-author a paper about sleep and smartphones.
And I see all this not as a detour from my scientific trajectory, but as one of the stepping stones that made me a better (perhaps more practical) ecologist.
We’ve written before on The 3D Lab about De Oorzaak as an ambitious citizen science effort to understand urban soundscapes in Flanders. This week marks an important milestone – the cherry on the cake: the project’s integrated scientific final report is finally out! It brings together years of work into a single synthesis that combines environmental measurements, citizen experiences, and health research.
De Oorzaak – for those who missed it so far – is a collaboration between Universiteit Antwerpen, Universitair Ziekenhuis Antwerpen (UZA) and De Morgen, and has grown into the largest citizen science project on environmental noise ever conducted in Flanders. Hundreds of smart sensors, deployed across more than a thousand locations, were paired with ten thousand questionnaire responses to move beyond a simple “how loud is it?” question. Instead, the report asks what kinds of sound environments people actually inhabit, and how these relate to sleep, fatigue, stress, and well-being.
A consistent pattern emerges: higher noise annoyance is associated with poorer sleep quality, more fatigue, and higher stress levels. At the same time, these relationships are not strictly one-way. Being stressed or fatigued for other reasons can also lower tolerance to sound, highlighting that cities function as coupled human–environment systems rather than as collections of isolated stressors.
Reported noise annoyance (subjective) correlated significantly with measured decibels (here: Lden) – one of the many relationships between soundscape experience and sound itself we could unearth in the report.
What resonates most with me in this report is – of course – the strong signal around the role of nature in shaping soundscapes. Natural sounds such as birdsong, rustling leaves, or flowing water are systematically evaluated as more pleasant than mechanical or technical sounds. Crucially, nature does not need to drastically reduce decibel levels to have a restorative effect. Improving the quality of the soundscape already matters.
The report also aims to translate science into action. One of the most concrete ideas perhaps is the proposal for an acoustic label for housing, analogous to the energy performance certificate, alongside recommendations on acoustic renovations, building design, coordinated reporting of noise nuisance and, of course, more nature! Together, these suggestions treat acoustic quality as a fundamental component of healthy living environments rather than an afterthought.
We hope this report can really support and create actual change. Of course, such a citizen science project is about much more than just doing science, we actually want to put the topic front and center in our collective mind, and as such accelerate change.
Lake Törnetrask, Abisko Research Station, Abisko, Sweden
Trifolium repens
Laktatjakka valley
Skjomen valley, northern Norway
Hallerbos 2017
Young bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) surrounded by flowers of yellow archangel (Lamium galeobdolon)
The common bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta), the signature flower of the Hallerbos
Single bluebell flower surviving on a wetter spot, as indicated by the field of wild garlic (Allium ursinum)
A really wet patch of forest, with giant horsetail (Equisetum telmateia) in a field of wild garlic (Allium ursinum)
Wild garlic (Allium ursinum) in the Hallerbos flowers a bit later than the bluebells, yet this one was already in full bloom
A bumblebee visiting yellow archangel (Lamium galeobdolon)
A bumblebee visiting yellow archangel (Lamium galeobdolon)
Wild garlic (Allium ursinum)
Wild garlic (Allium ursinum)
Weirdly beautiful, the inflorescence of pendulous sedge (Carex pendula), typical for the wettest spots in the forest
Weirdly beautiful, the inflorescence of pendulous sedge (Carex pendula), typical for the wettest spots in the forest
A little stream in the Hallerbos, surrounded by endless fields of wild garlic (Allium ursinum)
The herb-paris (Paris quadrifolia), less common in the forest
Wild garlic (Allium ursinum)
Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
Weirdly beautiful, the inflorescence of pendulous sedge (Carex pendula), typical for the wettest spots in the forest
Another one from the wet plots: large bitter-cress (Cardamine amara)
Another one from the wet plots: large bitter-cress (Cardamine amara)
Young beech leaves, as soon as they are fully grown, spring in the understory is over
A beech forest without understory, most likely too dry and too acid for any survivors
A young beech seedling (Fagus sylvatica), looking nothing like a beech, yet everything like a tiny dancer
Young beech seedling (Fagus sylvatica)
Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
Mountain melick (Melica nutans), a grass in the most amazing green
Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) in a rare patch of mountain melick (Melica nutans), a grass in the most amazing green
Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
Montpellier 2017
The entrance to the cathedral of Montpellier
The cathedral of Montpellier
The entrance to the cathedral of Montpellier
The cathedral of Montpellier
Narcissus poetics
The cathedral of Montpellier
The botanical garden of Montpellier
The botanical garden of Montpellier
The botanical garden of Montpellier
Brackish Camargue vegetation
Brackish Camargue vegetation
Brackish Camargue vegetation
A typical lagune
Brackish Camargue vegetation
Camargue horses
Camargue horses
Camargue horses
Brackish Camargue vegetation
Brackish Camargue vegetation
Brackish Camargue vegetation
Camargue horses
Brackish Camargue vegetation
Little egret in the evening sun
Flamingo’s in the evening sun
A typical lagune
Dandelion fuzz
Grass lily
Grass lily
Dandelion fuzz
Veronica in a sea of poplar fluff
Euphorbia in a sea of poplar fluff
Poplar
Gare du Midi, Brussels
Gare du Midi, Brussels
Gare du Midi, Brussels
Gare du Midi, Brussels
Sweden autumn 2016
Autumn in Abisko
Yellow leaves of mountain birch, with lake Torneträsk in the background.
Lapporten, the gate to Lapland, in Abisko
Rain blowing over the Abisko National Park
The colours of the north: red fireweed and yellow mountain birches, with lake Torneträsk on the background
Yellow leaves of mountain birch, with lake Torneträsk in the background.
Rain on the background, the ski lift in Abisko on the foreground
The steep slope of mount Nuolja on a dramatic looking morning
The beautiful colors of lake Torneträsk in Abisko
A little stream on top of the mountain, with a view on Lapporten, the gate to Lapland
Well, that is a beautiful table with a nice view on lake Torneträsk in Abisko
Our little experiment on top of the mountain in Abisko, with a view on Lapporten
Autumn in Abisko is extremely colorfull
The ski lift with a view on Abisko National Park and Lapporten
Hiking dowhill towards lake Torneträsk
This green is greener than the greenest green: moss on top of mount Nuolja
Well, that is a beautiful table with a nice view on lake Torneträsk in Abisko
The ski lift with a view on Abisko National Park and Lapporten
The ski lift with a view on Abisko National Park and Lapporten
The most beautiful hiking trail of the world: Nuolja in Abisko
Angelica archangelica, often the biggest plant of the Arctic
The most beautiful hiking trail of the world: Nuolja in Abisko
Cirsium helenioides, the melancholy thistle
Hiking down mount Nuolja
The steep slope of mount Nuolja on a dramatic looking morning
The colours of the north: red fireweed and yellow mountain birches, with lake Torneträsk on the background
The prettiest yellow and blue: autumn in Abisko
Fireweed, Epilobium angustifolium
Campanula or bellflower, I think ‘uniflora’
Vaccinium myrtillus
Cornus suecica, the prettiest red of the world
Hieracium alpinum, alpine hawkweed
Carex atrata, one of my favourite sedges
Alpine clubmoss, Diphasiastrum alpinum
Agrostis capillaris, bentgrass
Common yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Anthoxanthum odoratum, sweet vernal grass, fully grown and mature
Snow scooter trail
Our plot in the mids of a field of horsetails (Equisetum pratense)
Equisetum pratense
Cliff overlooking the valley with the road to Norway
Seedling of Taraxacum officinale, the dandelion, after two years of growing in bad conditions
Poa alpina, the alpine meadow-grass, with its viviparous seeds
Massive flowerhead of Angelica archangelica
Angelica archangelica
Blueberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) in autumn
A lowland marsh in Abisko in autumn
Installing the plots of our trail observations on top of mount Nuolja
Installing the plots of our trail observations on top of mount Nuolja
Tanacetum vulgare (Tansy), non-native for the high north
Autumn forest down in the valley
The valley of Nuolja to Björkliden
Summer on the Nuolja-side
A full rainbow behind mount Nuolja in Abisko
It’s raining in the west, clouds trapped behind the mountains
A strong wind blowing rain from behind the mountains to our side
A strong wind blowing rain from behind the mountains to our side
Betula nana, the dwarf birch, mini autumn forest
Betula nana, the dwarf birch, mini autumn forest
The valley of Björkliden in autumn
The valley of Björkliden in autumn
The valley of Björkliden in autumn
The valley of Björkliden in autumn
Sweden spring 2016
The valley of the lakes
Overlooking the valley of Laktajakka
Oxyria digyna
Bartsia alpina
Trifolium repens
Rubus arcticus
Melting snowpatch on a lake
A rainy hike
Although the alpine zone has been harder for invasives to access than most places, human structures like trails are often an easy gateway for the invaders to get up there. Picture from Abisko, Swedish Lapland.
Dryas octopetala
Trifolium pratense
Silene suecica
Cornus suecica
Ranunculus glacialis
Silene acaulis
Eriophorum vaginatum
Salix reticulata
Western European species like the red clover (Trifolium pratense) here are often listed as non-native species in mountain regions.
Ranunculus glacialis
Amiens
Colourful mirror
Enjoying silence and the morning sun
Frozen to the bone
Cathedral at night
Sunny but cold, the Quai Bélu
Amiens is filled with cute little houses
Cathedral at night
Gargoyle planning to eat the cathedral
Frozen mirror
Cathedral at night
Le Club d’Aviron in winter weather
Maria without a shirt
Cathedral seen from the frozen Parc Saint-Pierre
Nice architectural curve
Cathedral at night
Cathedral with a glimpse of spring
The southern side
Winter sun on the Place du Don
Cold!
House on the square before the cathedral
View from my office window
Almost cold enough for ice-skating
View from my office window
Just outside of Amiens
Sun rising above the water
Sunny but cold, the Quai Bélu
The museum behind the beautiful gates
Sweden autumn 2015
Lichen
Sweden summer 2015
View on the 1000 meter plots
Doing research on a cold Arctic morning
Plots flooded by the snowmelt
Flooded by the snowmelt
Meltwater river, racing down the mountain
After a hike, even the most basic house looks cosy. Little hut in the mountains, open for everybody
Snowbridge, maybe don’t cross…
Snowbridge
View from a cliff
Silene acaulis or cushion pink, cutest plant of the Arctic
Two seasons in one image
Steep slope
Hiking down
Narvik Kirche, church of the subarctic
Narvik Kirche
Reindeer on top of the mountain
Narvik Kirche
Summer at the church
Summer flowers
Massive waterfall
Young willow catkins
View from Narvik’s hospital, with lilac flowers
Building a bridge over the fjord will gain al drivers at least an hour
Norwegian fjord
Posing with the water, getting soaked
Minimalistic mountains
Insect investigating our reindeer antler
Catching mosquitoes with our license plate, harvest of the year!
Posing with the plot
Fieldwork on the most beautiful spot of the world
Fieldwork on the most beautiful spot of the world
Summer bridge – still next to the sadly impassable river
Rhinanthus flower in the mountains
Plateau in the valley, beautiful brown
Experimental view from my favourite plot
Salix catkins
Extremely old Betula tree
Waterfall from a cliff
Buttercup is the earliest in spring, here
Rocks!
Alpine views
Views!
Fieldwork
Jumping over rivers
Plot
Golden plover
Angry lemming
Green, the whole north is green!
Snow, so much snow left!
Minimalistic mountain moments
Fieldwork
The research center
Red clover – focal invader
Look at this tiny cute snail!
Massive floods of melting water
Bartsia alpina
Hooray, a toilet!
Dryas octopetala
Lowest elevation plots
Butterball!
That’s a lot of water
Midnight sun is the best
At the lakeside
Beautiful Bistorta vivipara
Don’t fall in the water
Midnight sun
Wild river
Art – made by ages of wild rivers
Baby firework for America’s independence day
Midnight sun at the lake
The Abisko canyon was wilder than ever
That’s a crazy amount of water!
The Abisko canyon was wilder than ever
The Abisko canyon was wilder than ever
Black and white
Stone-man overlooking Abisko
Nothing as soft as a willow catkin
Label and soil temperature sensor attached
I’d drive to the top every day
Reflections
Rocks and clouds
Brave little birch
Brewing our camping poison
Basic camping stuff
Camping in Norway
Home-made temperature houses
Roadside research at its best
Norway is crazy
Horsetail is so funny
Little creek in magical forest
Birches, birches everywhere
Beautiful rock, a gift from the river
Another roadside fellow
Lichen
Ready to rock the summer
Collecting mosses
That’s a crazy old lichen
Tiny tiny piny trees, but old, so old!
Ready to jump into the fjord?
Ready to jump into the fjord?
That’s a spiky stone!
Views on Norwegian fjords
Silene in the mountains
Cute little orchid
Skua
Attacking skua, mind your heads!
Watch out for the attack of the fierce skua!
Black snail
New plot!
Still a lot of snow to melt, but this spot was free for a new plot
Reindeer are better than people
Two seasons in one picture
Let’s see what is happening to the balance in mountains! Is this a starting avalanche, or will it last a bit longer?
Cute little hut
Climbing mountains by car
Softest moss in history
Drosera in the marsh
Hiking in no-man’s land
The clouds are coming
Abisko valley
‘Butterball’
Fieldwork in the tundra
Abisko valley
Little plot
Clouds and sun and mountains
Making soup on a campfire with a view
Little creek on high elevations
Skua on the look-out
Melting snow in a river
Rhodiola rosea and the Törnetrask lake
Beginning of spring
Flooded plots, melting snow, impassible wetness
Ferns and horsetails
Chile 2015
Lunch made by our local colleague, with funny bread (tasty as well!)
Trips to the field sites were sometimes a real adventure, especially right after snowmelt
The 3D lab 