The 3D lab

Ecologists of the subarctic: at world’s end

Posted on September 1, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

It was very bad weather, with clouds hanging low in the mountains. My body begged to stay inside, but I still put on my rain jacket and bravest smile and aimed for my steepest mountain gradient.

There I found a totally different world than I was used to. After the first hundred meter climbing, I already got absorbed by the cloud, limiting my sight till a few meters all around me. Even though I had climbed that mountain for years in a row, I did not recognise anything that I saw.

At world’s end

The world seemed to end right in front of me. Purely based on the arrow on my gps-compass, I made my way up to my plots, my inner compass helplessly getting lost more with every step I put. Luckily my gps did not worry about the mist. It aimed without hesitation directly to my destination.

The god of the mountains…

When I had been hiking for almost two hours in this dream landscape, I saw the god of the mountains loom up in the distance. A horned creature, looking at me from afar, guiding me to where I had to go. I decided I had started hallucinating, until I realised it was just a curious reindeer checking out what this human was looking for up there on this rainy day.

Alpine hawkweed collecting clouds

When I finally reached my plots, I had survived the worst. Slowly, the sun started piercing through the clouds, first only faintly and then finally revealing piece by piece the beautiful views it had been hiding.

I can hike in this mountains a thousand times, they never cease to amaze.

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Abisko, Clouds, Ecology, Fieldwork, Hike, Hiking, Landscape photography, Mist, Mountains, Nature, Nature photography, Science, Views, Weather | 2 Comments

Rainbows

Posted on August 31, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

In northern Sweden, rainbows mostly mean just one thing: that the sun is not where you are.

I have seen a lot of rainbows already this week, and consequently a lot of rain. The effect of topography on the weather often results in the clouds hanging lazily on top of the mountains- where me and my tiny plants are – while the valleys get splendid sunshine.

Angelica archangelica, the arch angel or Holy Ghost, looking splendid as ever

But I do not have to complain, at least I did get an amazing view from my plots, and rainbows still mean at least the promise of good weather in the end…

Common yarrow invading the mountains in a very dramatic setting

In the meantime, my experiments are all going very well, and nice results are coming out of these rainy fieldwork days. I hope to be able to show some more of them soon!

By the way, my next fieldwork days should get much colder weather (fall is really on its way) but the sun signed present as well, so I am really looking forward to that.

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Abisko, Ecology, Fieldwork, Hiking, Mountains, Nature, Nature photography, PhD, Photography, Plants, rainbows, Scandinavia, Sweden, Travel, Traveling, Weather | 1 Comment

A good omen

Posted on August 28, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

It was a quarter past twelve. I just survived 3 countries and 4 airports on my way up north and now had to drive for another hour to finally reach my bed. The weather had been really bad up here all day – after two weeks of amazing sunshine, which I thought might be a bad omen for the rest of my week. But then it happened. The clouds opened up for a few minutes, revealing a sky that was barely dark, and a green light started dancing.

I pulled over in a parking lot and enjoyed my first northern lights. They were definitely a good omen, I thought. Then, after a while standing alone in the middle of the night on an empty road, gazing at the sky, I realised what I loved the most about it: the true, complete, breath-taking absence of sound while the light was dancing through the sky. It was as if it even sucked up lights from the environment.

I was totally not prepared for this to happen, as I was tired and just driving to my bed as fast as possible, so I could only take this crappy picture. Then the clouds closed again, leaving me to find back my breath.

If I was an inuit, the sky would definitely be my god.

— To be honest, I saw northern lights two years ago, but it was only twenty seconds, a very light shade of green, not moving nicely, and my camera was broken. So I thought it was allowed to start counting from zero again. —

Posted in Sweden | Tagged arctic, Aurora, Beauty, north, Northern, Northern light, Photography, Scandinavia, Science, Sky, Travel, Winter | 5 Comments

Just checking up on my dandelions

Posted on August 26, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Tomorrow I will go back to Sweden to check on my dandelions (and their colleagues).

They got two whole growing seasons to become as distinguished as those three in the picture, but circumstances might have been less ideal at 1000 meters in the Swedish mountains than they were back in the days of this picture…

I will keep you updated about the adventure, already excited about all the new upcoming results!

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Animals, Dandelions, Ecology, Field ecology, Fieldwork, Invasive species, PhD, Plant ecology, Plants, Scandinavia, Sweden, Travel | 2 Comments

Me after reading papers for too long…

Posted on August 23, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Just kidding, I love reading papers :). This is just an amazing mural I came across in one of the most famous little allies in Ghent, Belgium, where graffiti artists are free to show that graffiti indeed deserves to be called art.

Zombies, they love you for what’s on the inside.

In other news: a new family of thunderstorms has crossed our country, tomorrow morning will bring the news if my experiment survived again! Crossing fingers here!