The 3D lab

(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.

Everything is edible until proven differently…

So see you all there, and greetings from Timon and Pumbaa.

Timon playing the flute, I mean mealworm.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Animals, Cute, Gerbils, Home, Nature, Nature photography, Pets, PhD, Photography, Rodents | 6 Comments

Five steps from the office

Posted on December 10, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Another office day. Work was going great, the much anticipated paper was taking shape, the data looked beautiful.

The channel of the Fort on our university campus, beautiful setting for an ecologist.

But one thing was not feeling right. It took me a while to define the feeling, but then I realised what it was: I was suffering from an acute case of wanderlust.

A lot of dark office hours, not enough encounters with nature: an unhealthy situation for a mountain ecologist.

Of course, there was not much to do about it. The paper needed to be written, the office hours to be respected. No chance to take a random plane to the Andes at three in the afternoon.

But there was one tiny solution. I could put a few steps out of the office. A quick shot of sun and nature, a small dose to ease the wanderlust and improve the writing.

So I hurried out for ten minutes, breathing in the fresh air, admiring the beauty of a sunny december day, even at no more than five steps from the office door. Ten intense minutes, six hundred amazing seconds. I am sure they will be visible in the paper.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Art, Belgium, Hiking, Lake, Landscape photography, Nature, PhD, Photography, Reflections, Working | Leave a comment

The mad scientist tea party

Posted on December 9, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Do you know how ecologists have a tea party? They bury their tea in the Arctic and wait a year to give it that perfect soil touch.

This is the ideal season to stay inside, close to the Christmas tree, with a hot cup of tea and think about the tea bags we buried this summer in the Swedish and Norwegian mountains.

View on our study area, where we want to get an idea of the soil decomposition rates.

Our efforts are part of a global research project, and the first results are coming in! You can find a very interesting summary of the project till now on this website.

There will be much more to tell in the future and I am pretty excited to be part of all of it. But for now, just keep this one warning in mind for the next time you drink tea: green tea decomposes so much faster than rooibos!

Not sure if you should worry though…

Posted in Canary Islands, General, Norway, Sweden | Tagged Christmas, Ecology, Landscape photography, Norway, Photography, Scandinavia, Science, Soil, Sweden, Tea, Winter | Leave a comment

Back to France

Posted on December 2, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

January will bring a short scientific mission to France, the ever beautiful country of old cities and amazing culture, and recently taking a prominent spot in global news.

Pictures from Meaux, a city close to Paris.

I will head to Amiens, in the north of the country, where I will visit a colleague. He is a specialist in species distribution modelling, the models that will be the main focus of the second half of my PhD.

There are some tricks and rules I really need to learn before I feel confident enough to play a role in this part of ecology, and he is the best guide I could imagine.

There is some big stories to tell about plant invasions in the mountains, and I am lucky enough to have access to exactly the dataset suited to tell these stories, and the help of people who have experience in telling such stories.