Boom! To be thrown into a semester in the speed of light

This monday I started a new cours, "global change biology". A very nice course that adressing plant physiology and how plants adapt to different environments. We´re talking about climate change, carbon dioxid exchange between plants and the atmosphere, nitrogen- and phosphorus requirements, different types och photosynthesis and a lot more. It's an advanced cours for master students (which is good since I have all the undergraduate credits that I need) who had a bachelor degree in biology or environmental science with biology approach. Every thing is great except for a small detail: I do not meet the entry requerments for the cours because I have not read any biology. This means that all the teachers believe that everybody are following all the time... BUT NO! hehe.. well... What i'm doing now is that I'm reading alot all the time and i'm trying to keep up with the rest of the group. Since I don't know any plant physiology, it's sometimes realy hard to understand.. but anyway, the course is really good and so far I'm following!


So, in two days my life changed very much, from having a three months long holliday to this I-have-to-study-all-the-time-life. 


And do you know what? I like it! =)


This week I'll start writing a short text about how plants adapt to the arctic/high alpine areas. Very interesting and fun!





Even though I'm studying alot there is still time for having fun! I bike and I climb as much as I can. =) 

The ultimate impact on the environment- be a size zero!

I saw a good article in the swedish newspaper DN today, it's about the diet LCHF, low carbon high fat. Some people replacing carbohydrates to protien and fat in there diet, to get thinner I guess. In some way it's really logical. Carbohydrates are converted to fat in the body and gets stored to our thighs, hips and bellies. The thing is that the production of fat and protein is very bad for the environment. To eat beef instead of lentils, butter instead of oil and tomatoes instead of carots etc have a very negative effect on the environment. The auther writes: "one review also shows that several of the studies that Swedish proponents of the diet refers to is sponsored by the U.S. meat industry and other businesses that have an interest in people moving to LHCF." 


If you speak swedish, read the article and form your own opinion. 

Since I didn't go to Svalbard, I had to do something else for my bachelor thesis. Me, my boyfriend and two friends where hiking in Sarek for two weeks. It was really awesome! Sometimes it was really wet but we hade some really nice days to. Yeah good time.

On our hike

Lars and I on a top

The four of us on Skierfe

The others went home to gothenburg again and I travelled on to Ritsem to meet up some other guys from the university. We stayed there for about ten days to do a biodiversity inventory. We hade a really good time up on a mountain with stunning views of Akkah (see picture below). One day it was hail and another day snow, but most of the time it was just cloudy and +5° C. In my project I'm looking at plants to see the how they allocate the biomass between the above ground tissue and the under ground tissue. Some plants were taken from inside a fence and some were found outside the fences. So I'm trying to see if they allocate the biomass differently if they have been exposed to grazing or not. It took me five hours to collect the plants, the rest of the time I was working with the inventory together with the others. 

Every morning we went up on the mountain with a helicopter, just to save time. In the afternoon we were walking back to the house where we slept, it was a one and a half hours walk. One day we saw a lynx outside the window, really nice!

 The lynx outside the house

The Akkah mountains 

 The hellicopter flight. Me and Mattias

Well I had a great time in the swedish mountains and hopefully I'll go there soon again! This semester I'll spend a lot of time in the lab on the university, to measure all the plants. I'll try to write more often!

Love

Changing to PLAN B

Wow, lots of things have change this week. As I wrote in my last post, it has been discussions about where to register for the project. I have spend lot of time trying to find a solution, but I didn't. I decided some days ago not to parcipitate any more. I send an email to the woman responseble for the project that I won't participate.
Maybe this sounds as it was a hastily decision, but of course I have a plan B.

The new plan is to do a project with a group of scientist from gothenburg. They are studying the effect of herbivours on vegetation in swedish mountains. It's not really clear what effect a different population of herbivours (a warmer climate may cause a growth in the population size, or a change in speices) will have on the vegetation in the actic area.

This study will be done in northen sweden, which is more of a sub arctic area. We will identify speices and quantify the biomass on different sites. On every site we will see how the biomass differ between an area without herbivours (protected with fencing) and one exposed area, where herbivours are grazing (without fencing). It has been investigated before and we know that it will be a inequality, but we don't really know how big the difference will be between the places.

So, I won't go to Svalbard this autum, hopefully another time. The good thing about this decision is that i'll from an early stage get better contact with the scientist in Gothenburg, where I'm planning to work later on... An other good thing is that this gruop of scientist (in gothenburg) are colecting data in Sibira and on Greenland, which is not too bad! =)

Today I'll have a new "first" meeting with Robert and Leif (two guys i've mentioned before). I'll write about that, maybe tomorrow!

And please do not feel sorry that i'm not going to Svalbard, It feels really good not to go there right now, it was way to much problems and I felt a bit utilized! This Plan B feels much better and I can now work with people that I like and who does not take me for granted!

well more to come!

I have no idea whats going on!

To be honest, I don't know where, in the going-to-svalbard-process, I am at the moment. Some troubles are coming up now and then, often we have found solutions, thanks to Robert!
 One problem, about registration, still exist.  I have 11 days to find out where I should register for next semster. I want to register in Gothenburg because I want to have my exam from here. But the research group I'm working with wants me to register in Tromsö, because of funding issues. It's a dilemma!


I am also applying for the course "international polar field school" on svalbard this summer. It´s a 3 weeks course in june were most of the lectures are in the field. It's focusing on climate change in the polar region which I'm very interested in. 


"and students will accordingly get a general overview of topics including geology, glaciology, permafrost, oceanography, meteorology, biology, Polar social science and management/decision making in the Polar areas." (http://www.unis.no/10_STUDIES/1020_Courses/IPY_field_school/afs_201.htm)
for me this sounds really good and I hope I get on the course. In that case, I'll be on Svalbard for just a few weeks in juni-july...


Well I'll leave sweden in mid august going to Svalbard where I'm staying untill end october. I'll be better on updating this blog when there are more intresting things to write about!


for you who don't know where Svalbard is click here, It's a map from google. The "A" is pointing at Longyearbyen, where I'll stay and where the university is located.


I'll ofcourse bring my camera, the sun is still shining in August, so I'll take a lot of photos! 


Okej, nothing more to write right now.