S9. Invasive species in mountain regions

This is the short summary of the conference session I chaired at the Perth conference on Mountains of our Future Earth! As MIREN-representative I chaired and presented in the session on invasion in mountain regions.

lembrechtsjonas's avatarPerth2015 Session Synthesis Blogs

This post might be updated irregularly throughout the meeting. Last update 5/9/15 16:00 by Jonas Lembrechts.

Invasive species in mountain regions. An emerging hot topic with an increasing set of risks, questions and consequently papers in mountain regions. A topic that well deserves its place next to the other environmental issue as a separate session on this conference. A topic much broader than can be grasped by only one small session, but the five presentations we had gave a broad overview on the several stages of mountain invasions and the questions that can be asked.

We started with two presentations on risk assessment and the investigation of the limits and possibilities of mountain invasion, the first one brought by Marwa Halma (Alexandria University in Egypt) working on the risk of invasion by the tree Prosopis juliflora in Egypt. She showed how we can model the current and future distribution of…

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Getting in the right mood

Overlooking the valley of the river Tay in Perth

Overlooking the valley of the river Tay in Perth

Today we climbed the slopes of Kinnoull Hill, the beautiful hill overlooking Perth and its valley, to get in the right mood for the mountain conference that is starting tomorrow. We enjoyed a beautiful morning with a shy sun piercing through the clouds. The hill is only a little bit more than 200 meters above sea level, but its steep cliffs at one side at least brought a bit of mountain feel.

The evening I went for the registration at the conference hall (plenty of friendly and helpful Scottish people there). I got a chocolate for filling in their survey that was sent earlier by e-mail, hooray!

The chocolate was delicious.

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Mountains of our future earth

Today, I am off to Perth to represent MIREN (and myself) at the mountain conference on Mountains of our Future Earth.

Let's see what is happening to the balance in mountains! Is this a starting avalanche, or will it last a bit longer?

Hoping to learn what will happen to the mountains of our future earth. Is this the start of an avalanche, or will the balance last for a while longer?

I am pretty excited to see Scotland (yes, it will be the Scottish Perth) and even more to explore the unstable balance that is global change in mountains.

Let’s see what we can find out about this balance and in which way it is tipping!

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Done some digging

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All but two soil temperature sensors dug up, and that is always a big relief!
Two lost probably to some overachieving moles, but overall the success ratio is high…

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Cleaning out the forest

Autumn is behind the corner, and the mushrooms are here to warn us of its arrival.

Mushrooms on a mossy tree stump

These diverse and delicate group of decomposers puts in such great effort to clean up our forests and nature after another successful summer.

Delicate mushroom

I feel the arrival of autumn is the perfect moment to submit a paper on litter decomposition, a project in which I participated with a European network of soil scientists to model the speed at which these below-ground cleaning processes function.

Young shaggy ink cap

It turns out that breaking down plant litter strongly depends on the climate: the longer and warmer the growing season, the faster the litter disappears. I guess decomposers also prefer to do the dirty outdoor jobs when the weather is nice…

Very large mushroom

I hope to provide more details on this fascinating subject as soon as the paper is out, cause there is of course a lot to tell.

 Young shaggy ink cap

In the meantime, enjoy these pictures of hard-working mushrooms.

Mushrooms on a mossy tree stump

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New phase

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Data for three out of my four experiments has now been collected, processed and stored away, meaning my research has steered into a very important new phase: analysing and writing!

Totally ready for my third year that starts next week!

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