The 3D lab is ready for the new year to come, and plans are bigger than ever! Let’s take the opportunity of those dark days before January to highlight some of the things we hope to bring to you:

• First and foremost: our PhD-students are preparing to harvest the benefits from their hard work in the previous year(s). A PhD always starts with searching, learning, building a foundation to work upon. Reading literature, doing fieldwork and learning and doing statistical analysis, it all requires a big investment. For Ronja, Charly and Jan, these things are now going to pay off. They are all currently working on (analyses for) their first first-author papers and, oh boy, does that make me proud!

What is happening in these mountain soils? Our team is hoping to tell you more about it in 2020!

• 2019 has given us a whole bunch of big announcements regarding our SoilTemp-database. Now I promise, 2020 is when we will finally do what we set out to do: consolidating the global network, spreading its branches further to all parts of the globe, and answering these big global microclimate questions that have been intriguing scientists for so long. We have the plans of freshly started PhD-student Stef with our colleagues in Leuven, and of our collaborations with geomorphometrists (scientists studying the shape of the land), and the machine learning team in Zürich. But most of all, we will benefit from the group effort of several hundred of microclimate enthusiasts to do what scientists do best: work together to tackle global problems.

How do forest understory temperatures differ from the weather station averages? One of the countless SoilTemp-questions for the new year.

• Our work with the Mountain Invasion Research Network will also bring more good news in the new year. We do not only have the work of Ronja and Jan, and of master students Ilias, Sam, Robin and Nell, but will also work together more with PhD-student Eduardo and the rest of the South American MIREN-team. Then there is more global analyses on the way, for example regarding the mysteries of the belowground world along mountain roads and trails.

The Chilean part of our MIREN-team, one of the many exciting collaborations planned in the new year!

• Finally, there is our work in the urban realm. Charly is promising some fantastic discoveries on urban invasions in the new year; we teamed up with a global network on urban invasions, and master student Naomi is joining the Lab to answer questions on the perception of nature in the city. Last but not least, there is some big funding news in the making for our urban projects. What that’s going to be about will have to remain a secret till early next year. 

Where are non-native plant species sprouting most? Charly will be able to tell you in the near future!

So, that are our major story lines in the new year. We hope to keep The 3D Lab growing, keep learning from each other, keep doin great science and, most importantly of all, solve important scientific questions that will help us to keep our eyes on the price: saving our natural world from the dramatic changes our world is experiencing.