Tag Archives: Conservation

A tale of homogenisation

I’ve always been intrigued by ecological scaling – it’s literally in my title: Assistant Professor in Ecological Scaling. One of the main reasons we care so much about scaling is that ecological theories don’t always hold up when we change … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Mapping the past to predict the future

Long-term followers of this blog know I’ve always been fascinated by species distribution changes. We’ve tracked non-native species moving into mountains and cities, studied how mountain plants travel up and down slopes along roads, and explored how microclimate – and … Continue reading

Posted in China | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

An army of scientists

This year, I had the joy (and challenge) of teaching Ecology to first-year biology students at Utrecht University for the very first time. Nearly 400 students, fresh into their academic journey, dipping their toes into the fascinating, complex, and urgently … Continue reading

Posted in Netherlands | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

SoilTemp is now MEB!

Over the past six years, I’ve poured my heart into SoilTemp. What started as a vision for a global soil temperature database quickly grew into something much more: a living, breathing community of researchers passionate about microclimate ecology. From the … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

BioTime 2.0

If we want to understand how biodiversity is shifting in this rapidly changing climate, we need two critical ingredients: microclimate time series and biodiversity time series. (And yes, let’s not forget good soil data – but let’s keep it simple … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Global impoverishment of natural vegetation revealed by ‘dark diversity’

Back in 2019, we ventured into the field with a rather unusual mission: to search for the biodiversity that wasn’t there. At first glance, this might seem counterintuitive – after all, we’re accustomed to documenting what exists. Yet, by exploring … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment