The 3D lab

Website updated

Posted on November 3, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

With autumn in the air, I spent some time updating the backbone of this ever-growing website. It was due time to include all adventures from this summer, as this PhD is endlessly evolving, and this website is trying to follow.

Just some autumn pictures…

There are thus some interesting new things going on at the top of this blog, with amongst others a completed PhD-cv, an informal overview of the whole story. More exciting is the extended list of all countries that until now have been featured on this website and in my PhD-life.

Some of them, like Sweden and Norway, have a reoccurring scientific importance, while others only occasionally pass by (with Scotland the most recent example). But the list keeps growing, and it is amazing to see where this PhD brought me already.

Another chapter that showed significant expansion is that of ‘The science’. There are now already five sub-chapters on the different topics that are important within my PhD. The stories are still growing, and a lot will stay a secret till I get it published, but it shows a nice overview of where I am going.

Posted in Belgium, General | Tagged Autumn, Belgium, Landscapes, Nature photography, Photography, Travel, Travelling | Leave a comment

A little bit of support

Posted on November 2, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

We recently adopted two cute little friends.

They are tiny, fluffy, curious and adorable, and I love them.

They are called gerbils – a happy type of desert rats – and they promised me to support me through the rest of my PhD.

This tiny but appreciated support seemed to have worked already immediately, as last week was a fabulous week at work, with one paper accepted for publication, another co-authored paper accepted for discussion and a third one finally finished and submitted.

As I said earlier, autumn is for writing, and that seems to pay off fairly well now. I am pretty excited to finally reveal soon some of our findings that I had to keep secret for the online world untill now. So please stay tuned for other parts of my PhD-story.

Until then, enjoy these pictures of my two little friends, and let them bring you as much luck as they brought me.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Animals, Cute, Desert rats, Gerbils, Home, Nature photography, Pet, Pets, PhD, Photography, Rodents | 4 Comments

Remember them

Posted on October 27, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

I still owed you a gallery of my latest visit to Abisko. You can enjoy the rainbows, clouds and splashes of sun here (or find it on the right of my blog).

Orchid

Summer is gone and all flowers are fading. It could be a sad event, if the beauty of summer would not be replaced by the warm colours of falling leaves.

Wintergreen, or – in beautiful Latin – Pyrola minor

But still, still it hurts a little bit to say goodbye again. Luckily there is this post bringing back the memories, with some delicate beauties from the subarctic flora (and even more nice summer pictures in the picture gallery).

Mountain avens’ fluffy seeds

For me, there is another reason why I need to remember these flowers. If I want to be efficient next year in the field, I need to know as many plant species as possible. Every summer I remember plenty of plant species names in the field, building a nice and useful internal database over the season. But every year in winter, my freshly gained summer knowledge slowly fades away again.

Red campion or Silene dioica

And every following summer, I have to dig deeper than I thought possible into my foggy memories to bring back the names that looked so familiar the year before. That is why I will try to keep their memory alive this winter.

Woodland geranium – Geranium sylvaticum

I decided on the purchase of a program that will help me remembering my plants. It promises a 95 percent retention rate, which would be totally awesome. I can imagine myself strolling through the mountains already, tirelessly orating species names, while an assistent hurries behind me carrying my backpack and madly writing down the ever-growing list of species my brain is producing.

I can live with a little less heroic scenario as well, of course, but I would love to have a little bit less moments of ‘wait, I am sure I knew the name of this one last year!’ and long periods of trying to find back that one page in the book again.

My personal favourite, the Holy Ghost or Angelica archangelica.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Ecology, Field ecology, Flowers, Hiking, Nature, Nature photography, Outdoors, Plant, Plant photography, Plants, Remembering, Scandinavia, Sweden, Tourism, Travel, Traveling | 2 Comments

Autumn is awesome

Posted on October 25, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

It is a bit of a pity that autumn is the season of writing behind my computer, while nature dresses in its warmest colours.

But I cannot say writing is not exciting on its own, with several papers slowly but steadily working their way towards the finish line of publication, and with one step after another being crossed from the list.

That is another charm of the autumn season, and I like it for it.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Autumn, Colours, Ecology, Mushrooms, Nature photography, PhD, Photography, Science, Seasons, Writing | 4 Comments

Showing off

Posted on October 21, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Some plants put in an awful lot of effort to look good, a case beautifully illustrated by this blue passion flower.

There is a tremendous amount of energy needed to make flowers, even if there is no need for them to look as impressive as this one, and flowers will thus be often limiting in extreme environments.

That is why flowering is one of the main measures of success in our study system of plant invasion in a harsh mountain climate (an environment were the passion flower of course does not stand much chance).

High in the mountains, the growing season is often too short for the invading species to gather enough energy to produce flowers. If that is the case, that might very well be the ultimate limit to their elevational distribution.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Ecology, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Gardens, Mountains, Nature photography, Photography, Plants, Science | 1 Comment

Tourist in my own city

Posted on October 19, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Old houses on the Grote Markt, Antwerp

On a beautiful Friday in October, I had the chance to spend my afternoon at the city campus of our own University of Antwerp to attend a PhD defence from a colleague. The sun was shining bright and I was eager to see a glimpse of our own city again.

Hof van Liere, the university of Antwerp

View on the Hof van Liere through its entrance gate

Us exact scientists do not see the city that often, as we are confined to the outer campuses, in the less touristic suburbs of Antwerp. So this ‘ones in a lifetime’-visit to the city center served as a nice reminder of the aesthetic value of our city and its university.

Gallery at the university campus, Antwerp

Gallery at the Hof van Liere

In the impressive sixteenth century city palace of Hof van Liere, the heart of the University of Antwerp, you breath in the history of years and years of education. The atmosphere says only one thing: university is a lifestyle. I just love it.

This gothic palace (for architectural facts I have to believe the internet) blends in nicely with the whole city of Antwerp, which is packed with one exciting historic building after an other.

Yet another nice looking church in Antwerp

On this sunny autumn day, all of them showed themselves from their best side, and every light beam fell on a new surprise. Or how one sunny day can help you rediscover a city you have known forever.

‘t Steen (‘the Stone’), the medieval fortress of Antwerp

I was glad I decided to park my car on a ten minutes walk from the university buildings, so I could cross the historic center. Church after church, the old houses along the market place, the fortress overlooking the river, a clarinet player on the Hendrik Conscienceplein, itall added to the unique feel.

Carolus Borromeus church Antwerp

Especially the last one deserves some special attention. Maybe I should not give away a public secret, but the square in the beautiful shadow of the Carolus Borromeus church is on a sunny (and maybe even a rainy) day definitely the most romantic spot in the whole city. Go there and discover it yourself!

So if you ever have the chance to visit Antwerp our its University, I definitely recommend it, even if it would only be for being welcomed by its beautiful architecture.