The 3D lab

Brave as a (dande)lion

Posted on April 29, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

A warm spring day at the end of April, I climb a hill to an open sand plain on a wasteland next to the highway. As I reach the top, the heat strikes me like a hammer.

On the open sandy field, temperatures are through the roof, making it a burden for the couple of plants that try to survive there. And these hard circumstances trigger a big feedback, as the heat kills of the plants that normally do such a good job to keep the temperatures between reasonable boundaries.

Where they cannot grow, the temperatures will not be buffered – especially not on a dry sandy soil, making germination of new plants almost impossible. This feedback can drastically slow down the recolonisation of an area like this.

It was hence a pleasant surprise when I saw this optimistic dandelion bravely flowering on the hottest spot of all. Another reminder of the impressive flexibility that this species can show, as they can survive – and win the competition – everywhere from the most stressful to the easiest environment.

We will definitely here more of these winners of ecology in the future!

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Belgium, Climate, Ecology, Flowers, Hiking, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Plants, Stress, Temperatures | 6 Comments

The Antarctic feel

Posted on April 21, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Punta Arenas is the closest a big city gets to Antartica. The implications of that fact are nowhere felt better as on the top of the Cerro Mirador, the mountain overlooking the city.

I have to admit the weather conditions in Punta Arenas can be fairly mild during the whole year, thanks to the tempering influence of the ocean all around. The top of the mountain however houses a completely different world with circumstances much worse than in the lowlands.

We had an experimental plot on top of this mountain, almost 650 meters above the city. Year after year, the weather seemed to be doomed on this plot. No matter how good the conditions at sea level, the top of Cerro Mirador is bitingly cold and haunted by snow storms.

And while Punta Arenas already has a reputation of a city with devastating winds, the top of the mountain seems to double that wind speed easily (beware of murderous pieces of ice hurling down from the top of these masts!).

All together, our highest plot in southern Chile is the best place to experience the real ‘Antarctic’ feel without having to go to the cold continent itself.

… I admit, that last sentence was a bit of an exaggeration. There is still a lot of live surviving there (although even our strongest non-native species finally bail out here). The Nothofagus trees are reduced to a stubborn shrub-like growth form, but they bravely persist.

And there is always that one brave little animal I showed before, proving it is all not as bad as it looks!

Posted in General | Tagged Antarctica, Chile, Extreme, Nature photography, Photography, Snow, South America, Subantarctic, Travel, Travelling, White, Wildlife, Winter | 3 Comments

Lyrical about a forest

Posted on April 20, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Oh, the Patagonian forests! You might remember me getting lyrical about them in a previous post, but I did not have enough time there to express all my love for them. I especially wanted another chance to speak about all wonderful things living together under these colourful leaves.

Imagine a sunny day, ten degrees, clear blue skies… The days before have been troubled by icy snow storms that smell of winter, but the sun is strong enough today to melt all the snow. A rare hot spell before winter really takes over the south.

At first, the lenga forest seems completely silent. Then, slowly, noises start coming through. The last remainders of the snow drip from the leaves of the Nothofagus trees and water droplets slip from the hanging lichens of Old Man’s Beard, re-imagining the best melodies of a natural organ.

The trees start sparkling with the sounds of thorn-tailed rayaditos, beautiful little fellows that tirelessly roam the bark and branches for insects. They are curious enough to hop close-by and show off their warm colours in the rays of the sun.

A flock of austral parakeets disrupts the peace as they soar over the tree tops. Their tropical plumage contrasts beautifully with the snows of winter. They do not seem to mind; not all parakeets are by definition summer lovers, so it seems.

All around the forest in April, the signs of autumn are abundant. Mushrooms take the lead, here, with a special mention for Darwin’s fungus, a yellow little golf ball named after the famous scientist, who took samples of this funny creature in the lenga forests on his trip with the HMS Beagle.

Another mushroom currently stays unnamed by me, although it might have been even more striking with his shiny purple hat.

Although diversity might be lower in the harsh world of the subarctic than in its tropical counterpart in the north of South America, the remaining species easily make up for that with character and charisma. Another one of my favourites is the Misodendron, or feathery mistletoe, who happily parasites the lenga trees together with the Old Man’s Beard-lichen. There are clearly whole ecosystem living underneath the canopy of these lenga trees!

The Nothofagus forests of the south might be less famous than the rainforests of the tropics, but they deserve at least the same admiration!

Posted in Chile | Tagged Animals, Birds, Chile, Ecology, Forests, Mushrooms, Nature, Nature photography, Nothofagus, Photography, Plants, Science, South America, Subantarctic | 8 Comments

Lenga forest

Posted on April 16, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

The Magellanic subantarctic forests (lenga bosque, in their own language) display an indescribable beauty. In the region of Punta Arenas, they consist almost entirely of one species: Nothofagus pumilio, or Lenga tree, a deciduous tree proudly covering the southernmost forests of the world.

I am so in love with the beauty of these forests that I decided to spend at least two extra posts on their beauty. There are just so many things to show! I will focus on the ‘lenga’ tree, although there is a nice relative called ‘coigüe’ that has evergreen leaves and prefers the wetter areas to the west of the Andes.

Over the years in South America, I experienced these lenga forests in different seasons, but now we got to experience the ultimate picture with their beautiful winter and autumn dress. You might recall the views from some of my previous posts (here and here, for example). In April, the trees show their most beautiful colours before shedding their leaves to prepare for the harsh winter conditions, turning everything in a mosaic of red, green and yellow colours.

The lenga trees are typical for cold climates with abundant snow. When left alone, they can grow to magnificent sizes, but in a lot of places they suffer from forest management. My local lenga-specialist at least assured me they could get even more beautiful in other parts of the Andes! Around the big city of Punta Arenas, many of these forests have sadly been burned, mainly to feed the omnipresent cattle.

Nevertheless, even the relatively young trees and managed forests got these ancient century-old look over them, thanks to the abundant growth of ‘Old Man’s Beard’, definitely my favourite lichen in history. This beauty turns forests into spooky Lord of the Rings-style ancient natural cathedrals in no time. They are draped over virtually all branches and hang down from the trunks, covering the whole forest in a green furry coat.

The combination of the beautiful autumn colours, the old treebeards and the late autumn-sun were a killer combination to get this forest high in the top list of my all-time favourite natural places in the world.

Posted in Chile | Tagged Adventure, Chile, Ecology, Forest, Lenga, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Plants, South America, Travel, Travelling | 7 Comments

Growing wild

Posted on April 15, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

I think I can reveal a little bit of the results of our recent fieldwork trip to southern Chile. I think I will have to in any case, cause what we saw is too fascinating to keep silent about it here.

Some of our non-native example species we sowed grew spectacularly big, with big flowers and healthy large leaves.

It is exciting – but at the same time highly worrying – to see the plants doing so well at this place so extremely far from home. Even we had troubles to survive the cold, and it was only for one week (but, I should mention, mostly on the highest elevations only).

Especially the clover species were booming, as you might see for yourselves. But that should not surprise too much, as they were everywhere in the local ecosystem already. The climate at the lowest elevation seems to be perfectly suited for them.

White clover in a local roadside

And it is not only clovers that flourish in the south. The scary part is that large percents of the vegetation at this moment consists of exotic species of different kinds, most of them from European origin.

It is one of the main aims of our research to compare the situation in this area flooded by non-natives in Southern Chile with the more undisturbed situation in northern Sweden. Can we predict how the situation in both areas will evolve? Can we predict what will happen in the future? The results of the most recent trip to Chile look promising in any case, so I hope to get some interesting stories on here soon!

Posted in Chile | Tagged Chile, climate change, Ecology, Flowers, Invasion, Invasive species, Nature, Photography, Plants, Punta Arenas, Travel | 5 Comments

From winter to autumn… to summer!

Posted on April 10, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

You will remember the dreadfull weather conditions at our field sites from one week ago and this post. You might also recall the beautiful autumn that followed these 40 centimeters of fresh and beautiful snow (here).

The weather kept improving, and temperatures kept climbing to a stunning 14 °C, which is – combined with sunny weather – impressively hot for a subarctic ecologist like me. The snow vanished rapidly and the deep blue sky gave Chile a complete summer make-over.

It was astonishing to go back to the same place from earlier that week and see how the landscape had totally changed. The ice and snow on this marsh on 400 meters in the hills had completely vanished in less than 4 days, and even our plots were almost snow-free.

For the fieldwork, this was a blessing, and I enjoyed peeling off all these extra layers of clothes while working in the warm grass. With caracara birds piercing through the blue air and flamingo’s in the lakes, we seemed to have been dropped in the true postcard-Chile.

The improved weather conditions truly helped finishing all fieldwork in time, which I can at the end of this trip proudly announce as a success story!

I am currently in a hotel in Santiago Airport. Due to persistent fog in Punta Arenas on the 8th and 9th of April, planes could not fly and my travels back got delayed. After a scary night without information in Santiago de Chile, I got now rebooked on the flight to Paris with only a delay of 24 hours. Ecology is truly an adventure…