Author Archives: lembrechtsjonas

Monocultures

Posted on August 11, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

Our EcoFracNet biodiversity monitoring project is gathering momentum. Over the past months, we’ve been roaming the Netherlands, clipboards in hand, from endless heathlands to city parks, to record plant diversity in hundreds of 1 m² plots. With several hundred plots … Continue reading →

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Soil microbes care little about your climate gradients

Posted on August 5, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

We had a hunch: the biogeography of soil microbial communities was going to be messy. Even less than plants or animals, microbes aren’t paying attention to the broad-brush macroclimatic gradients that ecologists often use to explain species distributions. They live … Continue reading →

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Extremes

Posted on July 20, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

I’ve just returned from a field visit to northern Sweden – above the Arctic Circle. It was close to thirty degrees Celsius this week. We nearly got burned off the mountain. This kind of heat is no longer unusual. It … Continue reading →

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Join EcoFracNet – we’ve got sensors!

Posted on July 4, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

Whether you’re already knee-deep in site planning for EcoFracNet or MicroFracnet, or just hearing about it for the first time, we’ve got some exciting news to share—and maybe even a little incentive to get involved. Wait, what is EcoFracNet again? … Continue reading →

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Boots in the bog

Posted on June 28, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

Far in the north of the Netherlands, on the border of Friesland and Drenthe, lies an endless sea of moor-grass, heather, and rushes – spread out across one of the last active raised bogs in the country: the Fochteloerveen. A … Continue reading →

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EcoFracNet at the farm

Posted on June 21, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

Our EcoFracNet project aims to uncover patterns of biodiversity across all kinds of landscapes — including those where biodiversity isn’t necessary a priority, like agricultural areas. Even these landscapes can host a surprising variety of life: along field edges, in … Continue reading →

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