Tag Archives: Nature

Cliffhanger: Am I, as a climber, a threat or a treasure for plant diversity on rock cliffs?

Posted on October 21, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

Translation of  the submission for the pop-sci writing competition ‘Vlaamse Scriptiepijs’ by team member Sarane Coen With the River Meuse flowing far below, I search for the way up to the top. With fingers and toes, I follow a route … Continue reading →

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Mapping the past to predict the future

Posted on September 30, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

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 →

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How to set up your own microclimate network

Posted on August 16, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

Back in 2021, we had an important thought: maybe we should start treating microclimate the same way we treat macroclimate. Weather and climate are monitored by national governments through organized, standardized networks – so why not microclimate too? We wrote … Continue reading →

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Monocultures

Posted on August 11, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

Our EcoFracNet biodiversity monitoring project is gathering momentum. Over the past months, we’ve been roaming the Netherlands, clipboards in hand, from endless heathlands to city parks, to record plant diversity in hundreds of 1 m² plots. With several hundred plots … Continue reading →

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Soil microbes care little about your climate gradients

Posted on August 5, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

We had a hunch: the biogeography of soil microbial communities was going to be messy. Even less than plants or animals, microbes aren’t paying attention to the broad-brush macroclimatic gradients that ecologists often use to explain species distributions. They live … Continue reading →

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Extremes

Posted on July 20, 2025 by lembrechtsjonas

I’ve just returned from a field visit to northern Sweden – above the Arctic Circle. It was close to thirty degrees Celsius this week. We nearly got burned off the mountain. This kind of heat is no longer unusual. It … Continue reading →

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