The 3D lab

SoilTemp: towards a global map and database of soil temperature and climate

Posted on August 24, 2018 by lembrechtsjonas

Short: we are looking for soil temperature data from all over the world for inclusion in our global database. Update: find the SoilTemp-website here!

Many questions in ecology revolve around climate: what climatic requirements do organisms have, how do they survive in extreme climatic conditions, and – increasingly relevant – how do they deal with the rapid changes in climate we are experiencing?

Despite climate thus being a crucial component of today’s ecological research, we are still very much limited in the climatic data we have to our disposal to actually answer these questions, especially at the global scale. Most of the data we do have comes from weather stations (or interpolations based on those): coarse-grained data measured at two meter above the ground.

Climate and temperatures are and have always been a crucial factor in ecological research

For many organisms, however, these free-air climatic averages are far from relevant: many species operate at much smaller spatial or temporal scales, for example. Free-air temperature and climate patterns also differ significantly from what happens at the soil surface, or a few centimeters below it. For many organisms in the soil and close to the surface (soil micro-organisms, ground beetles, herbs, forbs, mosses or tree seedlings, for example) there is thus a large mismatch between the climatic data we have, and the climate they actually experience.

For forest understory species, free-air temperature is meaningless, as temperatures at the forest floor will differ several degrees from what happens above the forest canopy

However, while the quality and resolution of free-air and surface temperature data at the global scale is rapidly improving thanks to elaborated networks of weather stations and satellite data, the availability of soil temperature datasets is still largely limited. That is the rationale behind our launch of SoilTemp, a global effort to develop a database of soil temperature data and build global maps of soil climate that answer to the pressing needs of modern ecologists.

For alpine species, temperatures close to the surface are what matters, especially in winter, when they can hide from the frost under a protective snow cover

Yet for such a global effort, we will need your help! If you feel one or more of the following statements apply to you, please e-mail jonas.lembrechts [at] uantwerpen.be for more information:

1) You have georeferenced soil temperature data (any depth) for a period of at least 1 month with maximum a 4-hour interval, and would like it to be part of this open access global database.

2) You have associated species (plants or other taxa) composition or trait data from the same location.

3) You know other possible partners with interesting soil temperature datasets, or working on similar topics, who might be interested in collaborating.

4) You are interested to be involved in this project in any other way.

Small and cheap temperature loggers (like these iButtons) have recently made such a global-scale endeavour as ‘SoilTemp’ possible

Posted in General, Science | Tagged Biogeography, Climate, climate change, Climatology, Ecology, Nature, Science, Temperature | 1 Comment

You’ll never hike alone

Posted on August 18, 2018 by lembrechtsjonas

It can be quiet lonely out in the mountains: the open vastness of the alpine tundra, the kilometers of rolling mountains in the distance without a soul in sight, or the silence that resonates through the rustling of leaves and the splattering of streams tumbling down a water slide.

Reindeer with calf in Laktatjakka valley, northern Sweden

But that loneliness never lasts long, as one never hikes alone in the mountains. There is often an animal in sight, and this post aims to celebrate the companionship these animals offer to the lonely scientist or hiker out in the field.

Marmoset overlooking the world from his den, Davos, Switzerland

From the tiniest songbirds hopping from shrub to rock to the herds of reindeer in search for a cool snowbed; from the characteristic squeaking of marmosets in the Swiss Alps to the angry cry of a skua in a Swedish valley. It is those unexpected visits that make mountain fieldwork that extra bit exciting, even – or specially so – for a plant ecologist like me.

Skua taking a bath close to our campsite on mount Nuolja, northern Sweden

We had many of those encounters in this year’s fieldwork period. Especially in the northern Scandes, it seemed to be a good year for many animals. After a few years of silence, voles and lemmings were back in fairly large numbers. As a consequence, their hunters were also out in force: skuas, owls, foxes, ravens and buzzards, all of them were profiting in a way from the sudden abundance in food.

Buzzard scanning the valley from above

For us, all these animals were a blessing: enjoying the sunset with the sound of golden plovers in the background, or surveying vegetation while some reindeer race by: it makes one forget more easily how long fieldwork days can be.

Golden plover, Laktatjakka, northern Sweden

Posted in General, Sweden, Switzerland | Tagged Alps, Animal photography, Animals, Ecology, Fieldwork, Landscape photography, Mountains, Nature, Scandinavia, Science, Travel photography | 2 Comments

FEASTing in Abisko

Posted on August 14, 2018 by lembrechtsjonas

It promised to be a windy day with some scattered rain clouds, when we head out to mount Nuolja to join the FEAST-project.

FEAST stands for Functional Ecology of Alpine SysTems, a large-scale project to assess soil conditions in mountains worldwide. Such a noble joined effort I find hard to resist, so we signed up to add our study sites in the northern Scandes to the growing network. One day of fieldwork, collecting soil samples and associated species occurrences, would be sufficient to move global mountain ecology huge leaps forward.

Measuring soil conditions for the FEAST-project

Of course we needed a representative mountain, one that would prove valuable in the global analyses. Our eyes fell on mount Nuolja, the 1200 meter high mountain peak overlooking the village of Abisko and the Abisko National Park. For decades, this mountain has been intensively studied by scientists from countless different disciplines in the Abisko Research Station, and it is safe to say that virtually no mountain above the polar circle has better data on all aspects of its ecology. CIRC, the Climate Impact Research Center of the nearby Abisko Research Station, now even re-installed long-term vegetation survey plots that continue century-old scientific traditions.

Wooden poles of the century-old long-term vegetation survey are scattered along the whole elevation gradient of mount Nuolja

Nevertheless, despite all this amazing data, information on the soil functions was still largely lacking. The FEAST-project proved a great first step in the right direction to change just that.

The vast open stony tundra at the top of mount Nuolja

The FEAST field day turned out to be a great success. We got some strong winds, I tell you, on top of that unprotected mountain, but we avoided most of the predicted rain. We managed to collect data for the two FEAST-experiments, with the first one looking at typical alpine soils along an elevation gradient and the second one focusing on snowbeds. Snowbeds are areas were snow persists long into the growing season, even when it has molten away everywhere else.

Surveying plant species diversity in the FEAST-plots

The latter proved especially interesting on mount Nuolja, as the region just emerged from a year with extraordinary weather conditions. With little precipitation in winter and temperatures soaring in summer, even the most persistent snowbed on the mountain was far gone by the time we did the experiment. Extreme weather events that are getting far more common in the north nowadays as a result of the changing climate.

Astragalus alpinus seeds on top of the mountain

Now all soil samples are packed and send to the UK, where they will be analyzed and compared with those from tens of other mountains all over the world. And then, finally, we can set some long-awaited steps forward in understanding the mysteries of the belowground world in mountains. And that’s truly going to be a FEAST!

Working with a view: Abisko National Park and the Lapporten mountain range where always visible in the distance

Posted in General, Sweden | Tagged Abisko, Ecology, Landscape photography, Mountain ecology, Mountains, Nature photography, Photography, Scandinavia, Science, Travel, Travel photography | Leave a comment

The Mississippi

Posted on August 9, 2018 by lembrechtsjonas

I don’t know about you, but I had this romantic notion of one day being on a boat on the Mississippi, that majestic river that inspired so many tales and songs.

The New Orleans skyline, as seen from on the Mississippi river

Now, being in New Orleans for the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (more on that here), the perfect opportunity finally arose.

Sunlight on the cathedral of New Orleans; a divine intervention?

The same cathedral, up close

And you know what? You can take a 50-dollar steamboat cruise, which is probably amazing, but you can also take the ferry to the other side, and pay the little sum of $2 ($4 if you also want to get back), and get that whole feeling for close-to-no money!

New Orleans from on the ferry

Well, that got me so excited that I had to write about it here! Now back to conferencing, as there is still a lot of people to meet, and a lot of exciting science to learn! I met a lot of fascinating scientists today that helped me shape some of my plans for the future. Which is at least as exciting as being on the Mississippi.

Posted in General, USA | Tagged Architecture, ESA2018, Landscape photography, Mississippi, New Orleans, Photography, Travel, Travel photography | 2 Comments

Humans x environment

Posted on August 7, 2018 by lembrechtsjonas

I am currently in New Orleans, Louisiana, on the shores of the Mississippi river, at a gathering of several thousands of ecologists: the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA).

The city of New Orleans by night

This year’s theme of the conference is an especially fascinating one, and closely intertwined with the recent history of this beautiful city: extreme events, ecosystem resilience and human well-being. More specifically, these thousands of ecologists ask the question how the world bounces back when it gets an uppercut, how humans affect this ability to bounce back, and how this in return affects us humans.

Human and natural structures in New Orleans

Critical questions, and dramatically illustrated by the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, a true exemple of such an extreme event that devastated the city of New Orleans more than a decade ago. A lot of bouncing back happened since that day, but it took an extraordinary amount of time and resources, and it made apparent that when people alter the environment too much, resilience drops.

The swamps, marshes and bayous of Louisiana protect the shores against extreme events like hurricane Katrina, yet they are increasingly under threat.

A lot of what we are working on fits neatly into this theme. Right at this moment, for example, one of our PhD-students is monitoring the effects of Urban Heat Islands on non-native plant species in Flanders, right in the driest summer Western Europe has seen in a very very long time.

Little (Dichondra?) leaves in a hole in the streets in New Orleans. People and the environment are closely intertwined, and despite the dramatic changes in nature’s status quo that this gives, we will have to learn to deal with it.

Assessing the combination of the direct effects of humans (in cities, yet also along roads and trails, etc.) and the indirect ones (through climate change, for example) on plant species is indeed an important cornerstone of our work. I will be presenting a lot more ideas on that matter on Thursday morning in my talk, which will focus on how these direct anthropogenic disturbances are overruling all other possible drivers of plant species distribution changes in mountains. For those of you in New Orleans: you do not want to miss that!

he ability of ecosystems to respond to extreme events requires their resilience mechanisms to be intact. However, these have often been severely undermined by land-use practices that increase effects of extreme conditions, a thought not hard to believe amidst the giant human-made structures in a large city like New Orleans.

Posted in General, USA | Tagged Cities, Ecology, ESA2018, Global change, Global change ecology, New Orleans, Research, Science, Travel, Travel photography, USA | 4 Comments

Live from the mountains

Posted on July 27, 2018 by lembrechtsjonas

A live blog from the field! That happens rarely!

We are currently taking a break on top of mount Nuolja, close to Abisko, Sweden, after a long day of fieldwork. We resurveyed a nice set of high elevation plots along the mountain trail for our longterm MIREN-survey.

Now it is down to enjoying the sunset, listening to the cry of the golden plover, and take in the magic of the Arctic.

More soon!

Posted in General | 1 Comment