The 3D lab

Like a phoenix

Posted on June 21, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

You might remember the obscure pictures of the old abandoned greenhouse we found in the forest at the university (from this post).

We had two highly efficient days of cleaning, destroying, throwing out and removing the old stuff that was ‘living’ inside.

Afterwards, there was another big job of disassembling the steel construction, as it was more or less merged with the forest and firmly hold in place by surprisingly stubborn roots and branches.

Big job, but with a lot of people we won the fight against the old creature and we managed to move it to our own experimental field site. There we rebuilt it for one of my experiments this summer.

Now it is happy and shining again as if it has never been used. The steel bars seem to be truly high quality, as it stands as strong as ever, ignoring the 30 years that have passed since it came into existence.

The field site is now ready for the summer. Next week, I will initiate the experiment and sow the first seeds of the year. Exciting plans!

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Ecology, Field ecology, Fieldwork, Garden, Gardening, Greenhouse, Lost places, Nature, Photography, Science | Leave a comment

Residing at the castle

Posted on June 16, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

They provide a beautiful example of a marriage between nature and culture, between history and conservation: castle parks.

I realised this more than ever earlier this week, when I (almost accidentally) stumbled upon a beautiful little park with the ruins of a castle right along one of Belgiums most disgusting highways: the A12.

Not that much further, the landscape looked like on the above picture: dirty concrete and countless cars, as far as the eye could see. The A12 is a combination of a highway – funnelling thousands of cars from Antwerp to Brussels and back – and a shopping street with massive shopping palaces. Together, this does not leave much place for nature.

And still, in between all this chaos, there is a little oasis of peace: the Hof ter Beke, a mansion with a history dating back at least to the 14th century. Although it is very small, and bordered on every side by industry, it has a long history and as a consequence even some remnants of old-growth forest.

Such a small park hosts a large variety of habitats and a large diversity. It is important to know that even such tiny little pieces of nature will never ever be too small to deserve conservation, as they can always serve as a stepping stone or sink population for countless species.

Even though you can never shut out the sound of passing trucks completely, there is an occasional goose protecting its young that might outclass this background noise.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Architecture, Belgium, Biodiversity, Buildings, Castle, Conservation, Ecology, Europe, Hiking, Lost place, Nature, Nature photography, Park, Photography, Ruins, Science | 3 Comments

A suspicious amount of green tea

Posted on June 15, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

That I seemed to love tea, the cashier of my local supermarket noticed. A fairly unusual conversation starter, where it not that he could impossibly ignore the obvious fact: I had a cart with only green tea, 140 tea bags of green tea, more precisely.

I do love tea, that is out of the question, but I was not planning on living this week on a diet of 20 cups of green tea a day. On the contrary, I only allowed myself to drink one of these 140, just to get the taste of it.

The suspicious pile of green tea has a role in a little experiment in Sweden this summer. We will participate – again, for those who recall last year – in the creation of a global tea bag index, an index that gives decomposition rates in all kinds of soils based on how fast bags of tea decompose.

That might sound a bit shady, but it is in fact really strong in its simplicity. If everybody uses the same tea and protocol, we can perfectly compare how different soils and soil organisms handle these samples. The result will be an outstanding dataset on a global scale with easily comparable data, and that makes me very excited.

Aim is to use both green tea and rooibos tea, as both types have a different ratio of carbon and nitrogen, important nutrients in defining the decomposition speed. Sadly for me, none of my local supermarkets sell this Lipton rooibos tea!

They do sell some other fancy tastes, like ‘Strawberry cupcake’, but I am not completely sure if they would pass the scientific jury…

So I am currently still on a hunt for 140 bags of Lipton rooibos tea, to make another cashier doubt my sanity.

A little tea party for one person, that is definitely something I deserved!

A little tea party for one person never hurts anybody. 140 of them maybe do…

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Drinking, Ecology, Food, Food photography, Green, Party, Photography, Science, Summer, Sunset, Tea bag index, Teaching | 4 Comments

Soft with a rough edge

Posted on June 11, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

This is the last post about last weeks’ mountain ecologist meeting in Flen in Southern Sweden. Find a (new!) picture gallery here or click on it on the right of my website.

I experienced southern Sweden as a soft place. Soft rolling hills, splendid soft shades of green, and the softest meadows with freshly mowed hay. This omnipresent softness came as a big surprise to me, as I only knew Scandinavia from the harsh world above the polar circle.

It might have been hard for me to believe I was indeed in Scandinavia, if it would not have been for the scattered spots of roughness in the landscape. Some of them obvious, some of them not, all of them bringing the northern feeling to the countryside. Some mythical Northern God had dropped massive stones on the fields in his wrath and now they marked the hidden doors to the below ground mansions of trolls. That is the Scandinavia I grew up with!

It was an intriguing sight to face these huge blocks of granite in the middle of the fields. The must have been impossible to remove for the farmers, as they probably weigh several tons. Now they are lying there peacefully, in plain sight, as a warning that circumstances might not always be as mild here as they felt on this warm day in the end of spring.

Some of the bigger patches of roughness even hosted trees and stood as dots of diversity in the landscape. All together, these rough edges made for a much more interesting agricultural landscape than I had ever seen before.

Forest patch in a field

I could just wander around through these fields aimlessly for hour after hour, enjoying every new surprise behind every next corner.

A rock, a peaceful lake or a little Scandinavian farm house, just wander through the picture gallery on the right of my site and let Scandinavia amaze you.

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Adventure, Agriculture, Beauty, Ecology, Europe, Hiking, Landscapes, Nature, PhD, Photography, Plants, Scandinavia, Spring, Sweden, Travel, Walking | 2 Comments

Summer is coming

Posted on June 9, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Lily-of-the-valley

While I visited the little Swedish village of Flen for our international meeting, spring slowly turned into summer.

The early plant species of the season were still in full glory everywhere, but the next generation was already taking their positions. This marks the most diverse flowering period of the year, as both spring and summer flowers were giving the best they had.

As could be expected, the farmers had noticed the countryside had moved from the starter to the main course. They used the nice sunshine for a first harvest of the hay on the lands. I was surprised this harvest could be so early in the season even this far in the north, but this region in the center of Scandinavia turns out to be highly productive for agriculture.

For those up early enough in the morning, the meadow salsify (‘morning star’ in Dutch) showed its stunning ritual, slowly revealing its beautiful yellow flower to honour the morning sun.

Still closed at 6:30 in the morning…

… and open at 7:30!

This comfortable sun also brought plenty of insects into motion, like this splendid looking minstrel bug.

As I realised while I looked with aww at all this natural power during my morning walks before breakfast, my PhD research is also slowly heading from spring right into summer.

Beautiful pink silene flower

My first plans are almost ready for a harvest, while new and bigger plans are getting into motion. These three days in Sweden were as much a boost for the Swedish vegetation as they were for me. I got the chance to present some of my ongoing projects, as well as strengthening ongoing and future collaborations.

For once, all the right people where in the right place at the right time, which sparked interesting discussions and launched exiting ideas. I had the chance to meet of some of the heroes of my favourite research papers in real life and – even better – discuss projects with them, a dream for every young scientist.

So I decided the message of this meeting should be as hopeful as perfect spring weather: the summer of my PhD will be exciting, and the harvest plentiful.

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Ecology, Flowers, Gardens, Hiking, Insects, Nature, Nature photography, PhD, Photography, Plants, Scandinavia, Science, Spring, Sweden, Travel, Travelling | Leave a comment

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Posted on June 8, 2015 by lembrechtsjonas

Ekenäs Herrgård is an old mansion in the south of Sweden, close to the village of Flen and on a one hour drive, with a cute old black train, from the capital Stockholm.

Ekenäs Herrgard

We were so lucky to have a meeting there last week, on arguably the most beautiful spring days the whole of Sweden will have ever experienced (at least to my experience).

The ultimate location for a meeting

I have to admit I felt a bit humble in this old mansion, with its books of more than 300 year old and its furniture for which I do not even dare to take a guess of age and value.

Me, barely a quarter of a century on my count, talking science with the ‘big boys’, in a house that has seen generation after generation of visitors.

The history of the queen of Sweden (with a real report on her international travels), a little book from 1689.

And still, I should not worry too much about my own value. I am a scientist, and I am proud of what we are trying to accomplish. We have an important quest in front of us: understanding the future of mountain ecosystems and taking actions for their conservation.

The mansion of the meeting: Ekenäs Herrgård

Old but beautiful

We might make a difference, but we might as well not. Nobody can however argue that we did not try. We had a highly inspiring meeting with a group of enthusiast scientists, all passionated by their subject, and all eager to solve all remaining mysteries.

The mansion seemed to approve of our mission, welcoming us with the best hospitality we could imagine.

Finding inspiration for the future in the beauty of the past

I am sure our hard work will pay off in the end, although it might take some time. And as has always been said (traced back at least to the old Isaak Newton himself): we are standing on the shoulders of giants, adding our small but significant findings to an ever growing mountain of knowledge.

If that is not worth the effort, nothing is.