Written by Jacqueline Lima
Last Tuesday morning 19th of October, together with our guest Martin Kopecký, from the Dept. of GIS and Remote Sensing (Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences), we went on an excursion to visit some sites North of Nyköping.
Our first stop was the forest around Kristoffer's father's house, where we could observe high understory biodiversity. We found different species of bryophytes on logs in a swamp forest that was a mown grassland some 150 years ago. Among the species, we encountered Anastophyllum hellerianum, Odontoschisma denudatum and Dicranum flagellare. Back in the house, we took a closer look at some specimens under the microscope, and also compared the historical maps of the area from 1804, 1900, and 1960. Such historical maps can be access here: https://historiskakartor.lantmateriet.se/historiskakartor/search.html.
Pictures 1 - 3: the group learning more about understory biodiversity; Picture 4: Anastophyllum hellerianum. Picture 5: Chaenotheca furfuracea, which is commonly found on soil and roots in uprooted trees; Picture 6: Taking a closer look under the microscope.
In the afternoon, we visited the microclimate experiment at Kronängen, where, using a dense network of temperature and humidity loggers, Caroline is evaluating the microclimatic heterogeneity and how that variation affects the performance and fitness of the green-veined white butterfly Pieris napi.
Caroline explaining about her butterfly microclimatic experiment.
From left to right, and from back to front: Biruk Nurihun (PhD), Jonathon Winnel (Master), Francesco Zignol (Postdoc), Martin Kopecký, Kristoffer Hylander, Ditte Christianssen (PhD), Jacqueline Lima (Postdoc), and Caroline Greiser (Postdoc).