Author Archives: lembrechtsjonas

The Light Fantastic: Summoning Ghosts from the Past

Posted on January 17, 2022 by lembrechtsjonas

Cutting-edge modern technology has brought us so far that scientists can now find ghostly prints from former human activities with breath-taking accuracy. Ghosts from the past, that is, and that modern technology is called LiDAR (light detection and ranging). LiDAR … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Leave a comment

Global maps of soil temperature

Posted on January 3, 2022 by lembrechtsjonas

In a new paper just published in Global Change Biology, we provide the first-ever global maps of soil temperature (0 -15 cm) at a 1 km² resolution, based on the global SoilTemp database of over 8500 in-situ soil temperature time … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged Climate, climate change, Ecology, Global maps, Microclimate, Nature, Science, Soils, Temperature | 4 Comments

A freshly-minted PhD

Posted on December 22, 2021 by lembrechtsjonas

Now, that’s what they call a milestone: The3DLab got to celebrate its very first PhD, this week. Charly Géron successfully defended his thesis on plant invasions in urban environments! The defence brought us on a cold and sunny winter solstice … Continue reading →

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Cities, Ecology, Global change, Invasion ecology, Nature, Plant invasions, Science, Urban ecology | Leave a comment

What if the next rain bomb falls over Flanders?

Posted on December 13, 2021 by lembrechtsjonas

Between 13 and 15 July 2021, exceptional amounts of rain fell over the south and east of Belgium. 39 people lost their lives, more than 38,000 homes were affected, and damage to homes and infrastructure amounts to 4 billion euros. … Continue reading →

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Climate, climate change, Extreme weather, Flanders, Gardening, Gardens, Nature, Outdoors, Science | Leave a comment

Bacteria: a thermometer for the past

Posted on December 2, 2021 by lembrechtsjonas

It was at a lunchtime seminar of our research group that Cindy De Jonge introduced a new concept to me: using variation in cell membrane lipids (affectionately called brGDGT lipids by those who love them) as a thermometer for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Norway, Sweden | Tagged Bacteria, brGDGTs, Ecology, Fieldwork, Microclimate, Mountains, Science, Soil, Soil ecology, Tundra | Leave a comment

Forests: buffers for temperature in the future?

Posted on November 10, 2021 by lembrechtsjonas

Even if you followed this webspace only occasionally, you should have gotten the idea of the fact that we are starting to get a good hold of microclimate across the globe. We know how much European forest understories differ from … Continue reading →