The 3D lab

A soft ending

Posted on January 2, 2016 by lembrechtsjonas

We ended 2015 with almost spring-like temperatures.

The feeling of a new beginning was even more accentuated by the endless fields of flowers of white mustard and fodder radish we wandered through on a nice walk on the last day of the year.

I was used to the yellow flowers in winter, but mixing it with the pink of the fodder radish flowers created an even more spring-like atmosphere.

Such a monoculture (or in this case bi-culture) of overtime the same plant is of course not too exciting for biodiversity, but the flowers can be nice for those brave insects that still fly around with these mild temperatures.

Note: I tried my best to get the names of the flowers correctly, but there are so many lookalikes (like rapeseed), so do not take my word for it just like that.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Flowers, Landscape photography, Nature, Nature photography, New Year, Photography, Seasons, Winter | 1 Comment

Castles

Posted on December 28, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Belgium hosts the highest density of castles in the whole world.

The Gravenkasteel in Humbeek

With approximately 3000 castles, farm-castles, citadels, manors or palaces, there is plenty of beautiful architecture to admire.

In the densily populated lowland areas of Western Europe, castles – and especially castle parks – are a blessing for biodiversity. It is there that some of the rarest but most precious habitat types are still flourishing.

This kind of Belgium nature is a much smaller-scale beauty than the endless uninterrupted Swedish mountains, but I promise you the Belgian castles stand their ground in any global beauty contest.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Architecture, Belgium, Castles, Europe, Hiking, Landscape photography, Landscapes, Nature, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

News from the west

Posted on December 23, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Every now and then, there arrives a much appreciated e-mail with news from the other regions within our network. It is nice to know that they are trying to do the exact same thing as you are doing, but in the totally different conditions of their own mountain regions.

The Beartooth Mountains. Picture: LRew

This time, the news came from the west, from the Beartooth mountains in Montana in the United States. Just as we did on our three day camping trip in Norway this summer (check it back here), they were installing sensors in all our permanent plots along the elevational gradient.

But fieldwork in the mountains has its ups and downs. And with an elevation gradient spanning a range of up to 1500 meters, a closed road in the Beartooth mountains definitily counts as one of the downs. When the road is closed, there is only one option: taking the bike.

Picture: LRew

Hard work, but very well appreciated, and I’ll assure the brave biker: the final results will be totally worth the aching muscles at the end! And let me virtually invite you for a cup of soup at the campfire on our own Norwegian gradient to acknowledge your work.

Soup in the Norwegian mountains

Posted in USA | Tagged Biking, Ecology, Fieldwork, Hiking, Landscape photography, Mountains, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Science, Travel, USA | 2 Comments

(not so) dark

Posted on December 22, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

It is the darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Always a sad moment for those like me who love the light.

But there is plenty of little lights to bring us hope on this day. There is the knowledge that from now on, every day will again be longer than the one before. There is the little lights in my christmas tree, reminding me of the cosy weeks at the end of the year, and there is this amazing daffodil on my kitchen table, with the promise of sunnier times.

With this little flower in mind, I have been thinking about this summers’ fieldwork today. We are planning to start a new plant invader survey project and I am collaborating on the research design. So in my head I was hiking up and down the sunny Swedish mountains already, marking species along the way.

But that’s for the future!

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Christmas, Flowers, Gardening, Gardens, Hope, Light, Nature photography, Photography, Plants | Leave a comment

Reflections

Posted on December 16, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

We are December. The end of the year. My PhD has officially seen two years and three months, a bit less than three more years to go. I am truly in the middle of it all, and I am enjoying every second.

The end of the year is the perfect moment for reflections, with this less philosophical one on a walk along the beautiful lake on our campus.

2015 brought me what I hoped it would bring: the publication of my second paper, one that I really like but that was not an easy task to get out there.

But 2015 brought much more. It brought significant progress in the two main papers that I aimed for in the next year. The first one is currently already under review, the second one – the one I consider my biggest story – should be delivered to my co-authors as a Christmas present.

That means 2016 will create time and opportunities for what should be my second biggest story, the project that will bring me to Amiens in the middle of January, and at least one other smaller project that I had not dared to put on the list for before 2017. Many of these projects have been growing over the past year already as well, and I am delighted to see that I will be able to realise more than I thought.

Again a lot of things to look forward to in the next year, and I invite you all to follow it with words and pictures via this website.

Thanks for following me!

Posted in The research | Tagged Ecology, Graduate school, Hiking, Lakes, Landscape photography, New Year, PhD, Photography, Reflections, Science | 7 Comments

A gerbil’s world

Posted on December 14, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

You might recall the support team that we adopted and that will guide me through my PhD with love and cute little bites.

The support team taking a break in their coconut

They now have their own little blog called a gerbil’s world!

Buying their love with mealworms

They run the blog themselves (with a little bit of support from my lovely girlfriend), so you should definitely visit them if you want a good talk with one of our tiny friends.

If you can drive a car, you can write a blog

If you love gerbils and want to learn more on how to keep them happy, if you just have a fondness for crazy cuteness, or if you want some support to get you through your own daily work, this blog might be exactly the thing for you.