Once you have gone through the effort of collecting a global database, you can start playing with it. And one of the most fun things to play with, I’d say, is general ecological theories &#82…

For decades, climate change ecology has mostly been a story about shifts: species moving upslope, poleward, tracking the climate they’re adapted to as it slides out from under them. It’…

Can you imagine how many hours of roadside fieldwork went into this? We’ve just published the MIREN road survey database, and the accompanying paper led together with Sylvia Haider: 170,000 g…

Mountain tops are big, rocky canaries in the coalmine that is our planet. Up there, above the last trees, change happens in real time and out in the open: plants, rock and climate, negotiating dire…

Big week in Montpellier this week, as the world’s microclimate ecology and biogeography community has gathered for the third global MEB conference. After the first edition in Antwerp in 2022 …

The MIREN network has turned twenty! Imagine: a global ecological network, built on friendship, enthusiasm, and a shared love for mountains, that has managed not only to survive, but to grow and th…

This is a massively important paper. At least for me. It brings together the work I’ve been doing in the Mountain Invasion Research Network and the Microclimate Ecology & Biogeography Network. …

Microrefugia. It’s a tempting concept, and one that has quickly moved from theory to the frontline of conservation. As climates warm, these small, buffered places may allow species to persist where…

So, where in Flanders does it still sound nice? A simple question, perhaps. But one for which the data has long remained elusive. Sound is a complex, multi-dimensional beast, and capturing how peop…

New paper out! –> Decorte et al. in PLOS Digital Health This paper might be the furthest I have ever ventured from my core scientific discipline. And honestly? That feels very much right. …

Gather ‘round, my friends, because this one is important! A few years ago, we released our Global maps of soil temperature – a project that brought climate data much closer to the conditions …

With the end of the year in sight, I always reflect a bit on this website and what it has achieved. Quite a shock to realize now that I’ve been blogging consistently for more than twelve years! Eve…

Microclimate data are finally finding their way more routineously into ecological models – and rightly so. Hooray for that! The growing availability of in-situ measurements is helping us brid…

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 ecologi…

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 ecologi…

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…

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 tra…

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 organize…

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 …

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 t…

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 …

Whether you’re already knee-deep in site planning for EcoFracNet or MicroFracnet, or just hearing about it for the first time, we’ve got some exciting news to share—and maybe even a little in…

Far in the north of the Netherlands, on the border of Friesland and Drenthe, lies an endless sea of moor-grass, heather, and rushes – spread out across one of the last active raised bogs in t…

Our EcoFracNet project aims to uncover patterns of biodiversity across all kinds of landscapes — including those where biodiversity isn’t necessary a priority, like agricultural areas. Even these l…

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, di…

In a region like Flanders – dense, busy, and full of human activities of all shapes and sizes – the problem of noise pollution is increasingly recognized. We often think of that noise a…

We had been studying the role of mountain roads as drivers of non-native plant invasions in mountains all the way back till 2007. Heck, we just published a first manuscript on the decadal dynamics …

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 …

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 …

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 …

I still remember those first groundshattering papers showing the impact of recent climate change on biodiversity. For decades, climate change had been looming in models and predictions — but sudden…

Some papers just hit harder than others. And this latest one – just out in Molecular Ecology – sits right at the top of the epic scale. The topic? The impact of mountain roads on plant-…

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Oftentimes the simplest scientific methods hide a whole iceberg of complexity. The Tea Bag Index (TBI) is no exception. On the face of it, it’s brilliantly straightforward: bury some green an…

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 …