… but not out of my heart!
My passport ran out of date, so I had to replace my most loyal travel companion before leaving on my next trip.
I have to thank this little booklet for serving me all these years as a key that unlocks the whole world.
I asked the authorities in a burst of nostalgia if I could keep the old passport as a souvenir, and luckily they granted my wish. He only needs to get his official retirement-stamp, after which he will be revalued as my official Guardian of Memories.
I do not often get the opportunity to see the effects of topography on microclimate as clearly as this time (only here!). I am studying its nature and impact on the vegetation, but knowledge on the microclimate is mostly based on measurements, as it is seldom possible to see it with unaided eyes.
Now, a thin layer of snow revealed the patterns I knew that had always been there.
It was on a freezing cold winter day in Flanders’ one and only national park: the Hoge Kempen. This nature reserve on poor stony soils from the last Ice Age shelters heathlands and forests on nice sloping hills, with a much more interesting topography than I am used to from my hometown.
We were there on a true winter day, after a night with a few centimeters of snow. Temperatures never peaked high above zero degrees celsius, but there was a little watery sun piercing through the high clouds, with just enough power to initiate a thawing process on the spots it could reach.
Those conditions, with the cold sun low on the horizon, were ideal to generate beautiful patterns of partial snowmelt, with circumstances on south-facing slopes feeling like a day in early spring, while north-facing slopes and forest floors breathed the atmosphere of the depths of winter.
The hot spots light up as coloured zones in an otherwise black and white environment. No other measurement devices needed to see where the heat concentrates: just admire how the differences between south- and north facing slopes, or between path and vegetation stand out.
My blog reached the milestone of 20.000 clicks this week. That is an impressive number, and one that makes me really happy. I would never have thought that my PhD would have such a big outreach to you, the people that matter!
So here is a post to thank you all! A thank you for reading, a thank you for following my adventures, a thank you for showing interest in the exotic subject I talk about. I hope you all stay with me through the next years on the path through my PhD, while all questions slowly find an answer.
I celebrate this little milestone with a picture of my office building, shining in a little winter sun, because it is there that all the magic happens!
The military has scarred the landscape all over Flanders. The cities and countryside are scattered with forts, bunkers and other war gear, all once with an important function, now just symbols of a forgotten past.
These remnants of a violent past, although human-made, however provide a true blessing for nature. They create safe havens for diversity and add a welcome element of variation into the landscape.
With their strange shapes and structures, variety in materials and topography, they drastically improve the possibilities for all kinds of wild- and plantlife, not in the least in the impoverished Flemish nature.
A lot of these structures are now protected for their natural values. Anti-tank ditches, for example, serve as long ribbons of biodiversity through the landscape, while many bunkers serve as hibernation spot for bats. All of it now acts as nice walking areas, even in this chilly winter weather, the condition in which I discovered part of this beauty.
Some war remnants are less obvious, big or permanent, but maybe as interesting. Some weeks ago, we found an old army truck, abandoned in a field. It started hosting mosses and algae and might even serve as a refuge for little mammals and birds.
War wounds are omnipresent in the landscape, but as always, Mother Nature will heal all the wounds.
Anti-tank ditch in Haacht
I was walking through a snowy forest, this morning, hands hidden deep in the pockets. All of a sudden I saw something that lightened my heart and made me shout: ‘it has begun!’
Every winter, it is waiting for this first tiny sign of spring, the first spring flowers breaking through the frozen forest floor. Today was my lucky day.
I know it is too early to throw away scarves and hats, but it is still worth its own little celebration!
Climate change is a global issue, and its effect will be felt on every square centimeter of this earth, that issue is more or less cleared in the scientific community. The changing climate might not have as much impact everywhere and anytime, but there won’t be many places escaping its wrath.
We do know all this, we have known it for years. And still, we scientists manage to make the same mistake over and over again. We do know that our own backyard might not be the most important place on earth, but it is just much more difficult to look beyond its borders. Ecologists are not evenly distributed over earth’s surface either, an issue reflected in our research every time again. In a recent and highly interesting review about the impact of climate change on species distributions, this pitfall is painfully brought to light again.
Scientists should try to look a bit further than their backyard, unless it happens to look like this.
In their review, the scientists mapped the ecoregions (a, on the map) and biomes (b) from where species distribution papers were available. It will not come as a surprise that the majority of research is focused on Europe (and to a lesser degree on North America). Massive parts of South America, Africa and Asia remain until now bare, empty spaces in our knowledge.
Not that those areas don’t need any climate change research; the tropical forests with their biodiversity hotspots should not be easily forgotten. They just seem to be… too far.
The Scandinavian mountains turn out to be the ideal location for climate change research
Even in this globalised world, the need remains for good and trustworthy information on the less accessible places on earth. What climate change biology really needs now is hence a new generation of adventurers, ready to risk their life and love to fill the gaps on the map and in our knowledge. Our databases crave for it; big, raw pieces of unprocessed data… Please, bring it to me, it does not even need to be a time series of 40 years at once!
(Off course, there is a lot of work going on at the moment to get this issue out of the way; science never sleeps! With the MIREN-network (Mountain Invasion Research Network), for example, we try to fill in the gaps with a joint five-yearly field campaign in 8 different mountain regions from all over the world. Check my role in it here.)
Reference
Lenoir, J. and Svenning, J.-C. (2015), Climate-related range shifts – a global multidimensional synthesis and new research directions. Ecography, 38: 15–28. doi: 10.1111/ecog.00967
The 3D lab 