PhD midway presentation
Bergen, Norway
2024/11/21
Eline successfully presented the progress of her PhD research to an evaluation committee and guests. This presentation provided a nice opportunity to reflect on all the work that has already been done and look forward to the exciting research that is still to come.
GIS/RS guest lecture and workshop
Bergen, Norway
2024/11/11
Harry Seijmonsbergen was invited to give a guest lecture (on developments in geodiversity mapping) to the GIS/RS community of the University of Bergen. The next day, we sat together to think about ways to improve GIS/RS courses and foster international collaboration for educational purposes. We thank the Bergen University Fund for financial support.
DiverseK Workshop Data-Driven Decisions – enhancing mountain ecosystem management through the integration of long-term data workshop
Obergurgl, Austria
2024/10/03
Suzette and Lotta got invited to give a talk about our running projects at the DiverseK workshop. The large group of participants had many different views on mountain management and the way that long-term perspectives could help tackle some of the challenges ahead. A policy letter and manuscript is upcoming so stay tuned!
Bjerknes Annual Meeting
Bergen, Norway
2024/10/01
Augusto got invited to give a presentation about his ongoing work on paleoglacier reconstructions in mountains and did amazing!! He got positive feedback and we are proud to have been mentioned by the special guest that day, Erica Coppola (News). Bravo Augusto!
Oslo Business Forum – Courageous Leadership
Oslo, Norway
2024/09/25
Suzette attended the OBF this year and had the unique opportunity to listen to the amazing line up of great speakers such as Adam Grant, Brené Brown, Mo Gawdat, Sanna Marin, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Howard Yu, Erin Meyer, and Peter Hinssen. Every single one highly recommended (check out their videos and podcasts!).
Sensing Mountains Summer School
Obergurgl, Austria
2024/09/20
Eline attended a summer school on close-range remote sensing techniques in alpine terrain and learnt all about the potential of 3D and 4D mapping, applying deeplearning models on point clouds and creating a digial twin in Unity. The week was filled with interesting talks, people and environments. We extend our thanks to the Klima og energiomstilling ved UiB for financial support.
Workshop & coding bootcamp
Amsterdam, Netherlands
2024/09/16
Suzette and Eline spent a week in the Netherlands with our international collaborators from the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University to work on elabrating an R’ package (coming soon!) for reconstructing alpine biomes, or “sky islands” at a global scale. Apart from a workshop day, we had several coding sessions for testing. We would like to thank the L. Meltzer Høyskolefond for their financial support for this trip.
AI workshop – TMF
Solstrand, Norway
2024/09/11
Suzette and Eline a two-day workshop on AI, organised by the Trond Mohn Forskningsstiftelse. The workshop covered different perspectives on the topic, such as the potential for interdisciplinary research, and our daily academic work, but also bias, fairness and ethical implications. The seminars sparked interesting discussions and left us informed, enlightened and well-equipped to continue integrating AI in our research.
Fieldwork to obtain paleoecological sampling
Mjølfjell, Norway
2024/08/23
Augusto and Suzette joined Christian Quintana in his PhD-fieldwork to obtain samples from different wetlands around Mjølfjell, Voss, and Geilo. His ongoing work focuses on the drivers for carbon accumulation in low alpine Holocene peatlands in West Scandinavia and regional fingerprints in carbon dynamics in Northern Europe.
Get way for early career researchers of the Dept. of Biological Sciences!
Espegrend, Norway
2024/08/15-16
Lotta and Suzette, together with another group of enthusiasts, led a 2-day get way for a group of early career researchers from the Dept. of Biological Sciences to discuss opportunities and challenges in and around science.
Botanical field course
Skibotn, Norway
2024/07/29
Lotta participated in a botanical field course in Skibotn, northern Norway. During daily field excursions, they explored diverse lowland and mountain habitats, collecting and identifying arctic and alpine plants.
TABS workshop
Amsterdam, Netherlands
2024/07/11
We shared lot’s of laughter and many productive hours during a one-day workshop with our collaborators from the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht.
New York Botanical Garden
New York, USA
2024/07/03
Suzette was invited to give a Seminar at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). She presented work from the Northern Andes that has been crucial in developing our PPF-Alpine project. Her presentation covered past connectivity dynamics, mountain biodiversity, and outreach efforts. The NYBG is definitely a strong partner for the future!
Quaternary Geology
Vestland, Norway
2024/06/24
During a week-long fieldtrip Eline studied Quaternary geology through glaciers, snow patches moraines, braided river systems, rock fields and ice caves. We extend our thanks to the Olaf Golle Olsens Legat that helped fund this trip.
North American Paleontological Convention
Ann Arbor, USA
2024/06/21
Suzette gave an invited key note talk at the North American Paleontological Convention. She discussed the opportunities and challenges with big global databases of paleoecological records, and presented the FOSSILPOL package as a key workflow to efficiently process fossil pollen data. It was a great opportunity for interdisciplinary networking. We extend our thanks to L. Meltzers Høyskolefonds that helped fund this trip.
World Biodiversity Forum
Davos, Switzerland
2024/06/16-20
Lotta attended the World Biodiversity Forum and gave a presentation on creating a global database on alpine species. The conference was centered around the theme “From Science to Action,” and was full of inspiring talks and workshops. Topics ranged from biodiversity conservation and restoration to the impact of policy and business, as well as innovative ways to communicate science through art and so much more! This conference also proved to be an excellent network opportunity to connect with peers from around the world.
GMBA workshop
Davos, Switzerland
2024/06/12-14
Lotta and Suzette participated in a workshop organized by the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA). Together with researchers from around the world they discussed ways to assess the state of global mountain biodiversity and enhance the network of scientists working on these topics. They also took time to hike and enjoy the stunning mountains surrounding Davos
Fieldwork in Páramos
Quito, Ecuador
2024/06/01
Liliya Draganova did fieldwork for her master project in the high-elevation ecosystems of the Northern Andes to study plant-pollinators interactions in the highly diverse páramos.
GeoAI workshop
Bergen, Norway
2024/05/23
Augusto attended the Geospatial Artificial Intelligence Workshop, delving into the integration of advanced deep-learning algorithms within remote sensing workflows for image classification. The workshop was a collaboration between Geodata, iEarth, and the University of Bergen.
Paleoglacier reconstructions workshop
Bergen, Norway
2024/05/10
Augusto and Suzette led a workshop on paleoglacier reconstructions in mountains worldwide with a close group of collaborators. We have a large synthesis upcoming in a manuscript that Augusto is leading so stay tuned!
Four grants received by Team PPF Alpine!
Bergen, Norway
2024/03/08
Lotta and Eline both received funding from the Olaf Grolle Olsens legat. In addition, Eline received two more grants from Meltzer’s høyskolefond and Klima og Energiomstilling ved UiB!
First trip to share Mini-Enciclopedia of the Páramo
Santander, Colombia
2024/01/27
Diana has been visiting several schools in Colombia to give away the beautiful children’s book about the high-elevation ecosystems of the Northern Andes! See more about this trip in our section COLLABORATION.
Conference International Biogeograpic Society (IBS) – 4/4
Prague, Czech Republic
2024/01/10
In between sessions, we used our time for networking and could not get enough of it. This picture shows just the tip of the brilliant-female-scientist-iceberg we got to meet with at the conference. It was inspiring to discuss our work and ambitions.
Conference International Biogeograpic Society (IBS) – 3/4
Prague, Czech Republic
2024/01/10
In another session, Johannes de Groeve, one of our international collaborators from the University of Amsterdam, presented the TABS Rpackage to model Temporal Altitudinal Biome Shifts featuring Suzette and Eline as co-authors. This package will allow users to easily create reconstructions of altitudinal biome shifts anywhere in the world, including mountains!
Conference International Biogeograpic Society (IBS) – 2/4
Prague, Czech Republic
2024/01/10
Lotta also had her conference debute and gave an excellent talk about her integrated workflow to process the “mountains of data” across multiple taxa to assess alpine biodiversity.
Conference International Biogeograpic Society (IBS) – 1/4
Prague, Czech Republic
2024/01/08
Eline attented her first conference with a very successful poster session. For more than 2 hours, researchers could learn how palaeoclimate models perform in mountains. Curious? Check out her poster via this link!
Plant Functional Traits Course
Drakensberg, South-Africa
2023/12/01
Eline participated in this year’s edition of the PFTC course in Drakensberg, South-Africa. She studied plant functional traits along an elevational gradient (2000-3000m a.s.l.) in alpine grasslands. This truly beautiful study area is highly biodiverse with c. 3000 plant species and c. 9% endemism.
GIS/RS get-together
Bergen, Norway
2023/11/21
Suzette and Eline co-organised a seminar bringing GIS/RS enthusiasts together. The session was a great success, with over 20 talks and 40 attendees from researchers across 11 departments.
(GIS=geographic information system, RS= remote sensing)
Open, Reproducible, and Transparent Science in Ecology
Hjerkinn, Norway
2023/11/17
Lotta followed a course on open science in ecology and spent a week gaining new skills in data management, creating reproducible workflows, making data FAIR and learning how to build your own R-package.
GIS/RS workshop
Finse, Norway
2023/11/15
Eline attended a workshop that was organised in collaboration with the University of Bergen, the University of Oslo and the University of Tromsø. Together, they discussed how GIS/RS courses can be structured and improved nationally.
(GIS=geographic information system, RS= remote sensing)
Fieldwork alpine ecosystems
Ustaoset, Norway
2023/09/15
The best way to understand alpine ecosystems is of course to go into the field! We travelled around the region of Ustaoset in search of interesting wetlands where paleoecological research could be done, supporting the PhD project of Christian Quintana. The weather was surprisingly mild, and we managed to study the ecological past of this region in more detail.
Annual meeting CHESS
Tyrifjord, Norway
2023/09/25
Annual meetings of the Norwegian Research School on Changing Climates in the coupled Earth System (CHESS) are aimed at interdisciplinary groups of PhD researchers and their supervisors. During a 3-day meeting, Lotta and Suzette presented their work among 28 other talks and 14 poster presentations. It was certainly time well spent to share with so many interesting researchers over the long dinners.
Island Biogeography and Macroecology Summerschool
Terceira, Azores
2023/07/18
Eline and Lotta spent 16 days in the beautiful Azores for an intense summer school program on island biogeography. Combined lectures by esteemed experts in the field, practical coding sessions and fieldwork were the ideal way to learn more about the link between island and mountain biogeography for a range of different species.
Naturalis
Leiden, The Netherlands
2023/03/29
We visited our collaborators Renske Onstein and Luis Valente at the amazing Naturalis Biodiversity Center, which is a research centre on biodiversity in the Netherlands part of the National Museum of Natural History. There is certainly high potential for further integration of interdisciplinary work, and it will be a must to come back soon and develop these further.
Start-up meeting long-term alpine dynamics
Amsterdam
2023/03/27
We returned to the academic roots of Suzette and Eline at the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam. We organized a workshop to discuss the long-term history of alpine systems and their biogeographical links with true islands and their dynamic past. A cross-disciplinary integration is in place and we are excited to move forward with more collaborators.
Start-up meeting alpine biodiversity
Göttingen, Germany
2023/03/22
We were warmly welcomed by the Department of Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography at the University of Göttingen. We organized our first project meeting aimed at organizing our global alpine biodiversity database! We had many fruitful discussions and set a clear workflow to get started. Excited!
