PhD in Copenhagen

Last Week I was offered the PhD position in Copenhagen. My respons was Of course positive. I'll start the first of march. Exciting! Two summers of fieldwork on greenland measuring VOCs emissions from vegetation. So, now i have to finish my thesis and then pack our things and move..

Short video

Short video from a day on the sea.

Submitted again

The paper about carbon- and nitrogen allocation in plants and the effect of reindeer grazing has now been rewritten and will be submitted this afternoon, or perhaps tomorrow morning. Nice! Hopefully, this time, it will be published. Wish for the best!

October leaf

Isn't autumn the best season of the year (except for a snowy winter of course!)?

Autumn evening

Gothenburg okt 2012

Time goes on

Well. In january i'm supposed to finish my thesis, and graduate.. I have applied for a PhD position at KU, university of Copenhagen, Denmark. The project is about VOC (Volatile organic carbon) fluxes, and how the fluxes are affected by climate change. There will be fieldwork on three greenlandic sites and thereafter some incubation- and labeling studies in lab. The project is suppose to start in february, I really hope I will get the position. Will see. There is also a very interesting upcoming PhD position in Umeå, northern Sweden. There are some places where the reindeer concentration has been really high, and it seems like the vegetative production is much higher at those spots. So, the project will address whether reindeer livestock increases the production in the vegetative system. I'll apply for this position as well. As far as I know will also this project start in the beginning of 2013.

About my thesis.. The Lab work with the mycelia is much more time consuming than I first thought. The extraction of Chitin is rather complicated, since we used a GC instead of a LC... Well.. I hope we'll solve this and that I will have some results soon. The extraction of ergosterol didn't give any exciting results either.. I think I have to do the extraction again. Maybe there is something wrong with the sand or with some of the chemicals.. In any case, I have to write something before christmas, otherwise I won't make it in time..

I'm also rewriting the first paper, which was not published in PED. Trying an other journal and hope for the best. Hopefully you'll soon be able to search for Lindwall et al. on google.. =)

It feels a bit strange that i don't know where I'll live in a few months.. gothenburg, copenhagen, umeå or somewhere else... ?!

At least I'm happy!

Film from Greenland

I've made a film from the fieldwork on greenland. Feel free to watch. just a warning: the quality is rather crap... it's twelve minutes. have fun... And, we mostly speek swedish...
THE FILM: fieldwork on greenland

3rd day of NordSIR meeting

Todays key note speaker was Susan Trumbore from the Max planck university, Jena. The only person on this meeting who is actually not working with stable isotopes. No, she a radiocarbon person and she was the one responsible for the radiocarbon course in Jena in July this year. Very nice to see her again. Me, and four other had to leave earlier, so unfortunately we didn't have the chance to listen to Sabine Reinsch, Lorenzo Menichetti, Jurgen Schleucher and Craig Barrie. Over all the meeting have been very interesting and organized very nicely! I hope I can join next year NordSIR meeting! 

Susan sharing her knowledge of 14C

Day 2, Nordsir meeting

Today Nina Buchmann started with a talk about stable isotopes as a tool for tracing carbon, at molecular and ecosystem levels. Ina Ehlers continued and thereafter Helle Plough, Marja Tiirola, Promis Mpamah and Per Ambus. everything before lunch. Leif Klemedtsson gave a short introduction to the Skogaryd research catchment before everybody left the station for a trip to the field site. Myself and a few other people did not come along to the field, because we have been there several times before. Instead we took the afternoon off and visited the small town Lysekil. We went to a café and took a walk in the town. Isoprime sponsored a very fancy seafood buffe this evning, thanks a lot for that!

Nina giving her talk

lunch time on the station

The station is located in the outlet of a fjord

Visiting a cafe in Lysekil town

The old part of Lysekil.

Lysekil

The ferry, named Ran,  crossing the fjord back and forth to Lysekil.

NordSIR meeting

1-3 October- NordSIR (Nordic network for  stable isotope research) meeting at the marine research station in Fiskebäckskil, Bohuslän, Sweden. So far, very nice organized and everything works well. Very interesting talks about nitrogen isotopes, different approches and methodes when using stable isotopes. We are about 30 people here, with many different scientists giving talks. Today David Myrold from Oregon was the key-note speaker, followed by Petra Lachouani, Lars-Ola Nilsson and Hanna Silvennoinen. Thanks a lot to Tobias Rutting for organizing the meeting! tell you more tomorrow

Fieldwork in Zackenberg

So, my dream came true. Being in the arctic is one of the most exciting things i've ever done. It was so beautiful and the arctic environment is the best I've ever visite. However, being there in december might not be as hilarious as in september. Me and my colleague, Mats, were on the Zackenberg ecological research station, in north east Greenland, for 3 1/2 week. We took soil samples from the active layer and also drilled for permafrost cores. The samples will now, when back in Gothenburg, be incubated for 1,5 years while gas fluxes is continuously measured. We had some spare time during the month and we did some hiking, both with tent but also some day trips. 

The flight to Zackenberg

The Station

Lab work, helping Daan Blok

Sorting roots

Soil samples

Trip to Kuhn passet

View from Zackenberg

Gasflux measurments

Drilling permafrost

Radiocarbon short course in Jena, Germany

The week was very nice. Lucky us, the schedule was not very intense. However, everything  was very advance, and hard to understand. One of the first lecture was the nomenclature in radiocarbon studies, and at that time I understood that this week was going to be tricky... The first thing was that the abbreviation BP didn't mean Before present, but instead, before physics, 1950. When measuring 14C (=radiocarbon) you will have a value that mirrors the concentration in the atmosphere at the time something die. However, if you for example analyzing a soil sample, the carbon entering the soil comes from plants and will because of that lag behind compared to the atmosphere. So, the concentration of 14C in the soil mirrors the concentration in the atmosphere at the time it was fixed by the plant. And for complicating it a bit more, at 1963 there was a peak in the 14C concentration of the atmosphere because of bombs. So, unfortunately the equations for calculating the age of something using 14C is rather complicated since you must know if the sample died before or after BP (=1950, when the concentration started to increase)... So, to sum up, to analysing the age of a sample using radiocarbon is not as straight forward as I once thought. The next complicated thing is that the amount of 14C in samples is in the range of 10^-12, or in other words, very low. A sample will be contaminated very easy. Just imagine the age of a plastic bag or a plastic pot. Plastic is made of oil, and the carbon in oil is very very old, and may simply destroy your sample. You also have to compare your 14C concentration in the sample with the concentration of 13C to get an idea of the mass fraction that may occur when carbon is transported and when it reacts. So everything is just getting more and more complicated, and it seems like you can destroy your sample at so many times that I don't think I would dare to even try. 

Concentration of 14C in atmosphere, showing the bomb peak at 1963.
if you have sample with 140 ppm you may not know if it is from 1960 of 1975.. 

The facilities in Jena was very nice. A very large lab with a AMS (accelerator mass spectrometer) for measuring the 14C in a sample.

The week in Jena offered a lot of information, weissbier, potatoes and BBQ. a really nice week. As a bonus Ralph Keeling was giving a talk in Jena the very same week as we was there, Good stuff!

Course in Jena

Leaving sweden on sunday morning, going to Jena, Germany. It is a short course (6 days) about radiocarbon (=14C) and how to use and measure it.. It seems like the course is generous, very good speakers and lab exercises. This course is necessary for the Greenland project where we will measure the age of carbon consumed by microorganisms during incubation of permafrost soil. This will be very interesting and contribute to further knowledge about how the arctic environment will respond to a global warming. I'm really looking forward to Greenland and also this course in Jena, it will be very useful. I'll take some photos and write something about the course when home again. 

Earlier in june I participated on a course in Denmark, it was very interesting and I learned a lot. A very ambitious assignment had to be done and approved after the course, and I'm very happy that I passed! 

I'm thinking about applying for at PhD in Trondheim, Norway. It's in ecology and ecophysiology, and it seems very interesting. Last date for applying is 15 of aug. 

Thats all from now

Summer activities

The summer started in denmark, a PhD course about Soil organic matter and isotopes labelling. Very interesting (maybe a bit to much about agriculture)! Next thing comming up is a radiocarbon course in Jena, Germany. Going there the 15th of july, looking forward to that. Today I'm starting one week work as a field assistant in a bio-inventory project in the Swedish mountains, sleeping in tent and gonna be eaten by mosquitoes and sunflies, yehaa!

I will have four weeks holliday after Jena and than go to Greenland for sampling.

And thats about it!

The life of a master student

I'm soon about to start my last semester. That's a bit scary, and the main question is growing larger and larger: What shall I do next?

I still got lot to do before then, but still, time running fast and I will soon find my self in a postition with a  master degree. I'm quite sure that I will find my self a job. But where, how and which kind of job am I looking for. Those questions are really hard to answer..

Anyway, as aforementioned, I still got lot to do. At the moment, i'm reading articles. Trying to find some facts that can help me to interpret my results. It is in no way easy to find sollutions in nature. If anyone believes it's piece of cake to do science, they must revise. I can't even count how many factors that may affect my results, I guess I'm not even awere of half oh them! What a pitty!

Well, I'm starting to be really good at finding words as: "However", "Nevertheless", "Yet", "Still" etc.
Those are the words that builds up scientific articles.. If you just learn those words, you can write articles.. =)

Mycelia production in arctic ecosystem is what i'm focusing on right now. It is suprisingly interesting. Mycorrhiza is the symbiosis between plants and fungi. Fungi provides plant with nutrients and host plant support fungi with carbon. The mycelia of fungi is like the roots of a plant, scanning the soil for nutrients. I'm trying to find the relationship between reindeer grazing and mycelia production. There should be an interaction, since both fungi and reindeer gets energi from the same source, but the results are a bit fuzzy, making the intrepretation hard.

Thats all from now, back to papers!

Starting article 2

Yes, the first article is almost finished. So, when the other guys are reading and improving i'm starting up the second article. The lab work and carbon-nitrogen analysis is done so I just have to do the statistical analysis and then write..  I've already written the method (except for the part explaining the statistical analysis, scince I have not done that yet). I will work very much the forthcomming weeks, starting to read alot about mycel production and the importance of mycorrhiza in arctic ecosystems. I hope I will be almost done whit article 2 in the beginning of summer (very short of time). The 9th of June I'm going to Denmark for a PhD Isotope course. exciting indeed! The 23rd of August I'm going to Greenland for gas flux measurments, that's also very exciting! =) Just have a look at this link. The fieldstation seems to be placed on a very beautiful location! I have also applied for another isotope course in Nancy, France in late September. And the third article (gas fluxes on Greenland) are supposed to be done in January 2013, Good luck to me! =)

Except for studying I'm climbing very much righ now, outside on the real mountains ofcourse! And also biking! We are starting up a project for long distance biking. We need other bikes and other equipments for long travelling. i.e. bike bags, comfortable sitting position etc. Nice to have something else to do and to have something to look forward! For swedish people; have a look at the bike blog.  But still, Mountain biking is the real fun according to me!

It's spring time, let's go out and have some fun!

Another blog

I've started a new blog, just focusing on bikes. cyklarna.blogspot.com
It's in swedish, but there are alot of pictures for non-swedish speakers to watch.. =)

In the middle of everything

The title of this post is describing my life very well.. I'm rewriting one text at the same time as i'm starting up the new project about mycel production in the mountains. It's actually a very nice mix of writing and lab work. And lucky me, the course in history of science is about to end (in two weeks or so). What i'm trying to say here is that i'll be a better blogger in a few weeks because i'll soon have some more interesting things to write about, but also more time for writing!

But, I'll ofcoarse show you a picture on hyphae!

I'll tell you everything about hyphae another time!

just some nice pics

Sometimes Gothenburg is really nice!

Mountinbike is so much fun in wintertime, love it! 

I love winter!

My second first choice!

If I got the chance to choose again I would have chosen to become an optician. The education is 2 yrs and the starting salary is really good. And what's also a contributing factor is that they never work on weekends. When they are done for today, they go home and DON'T bring their job home.. WOW!

plus, Glasses are often good looking!

Maybe this is my backup-plan!

http://www.bioenv.gu.se/digitalAssets/1359/1359723_frida-lindwall.pdf

my Bcs thesis..

wake-up call

I'm either a very bad english speaker/reader, or the text I'm trrying to read is very advanced... I'm not really sure wich of these two options that is true, but it is really frustrating not understanding the text. In one paragraph I was forced (not forced, but I had no choice!) to look up at least one word in each sentence (just to get the context...).
I'll give you some examples:

unambiguously
subtle
aspiration
prowess
locus
explication
amenable
salient
lacuna
congruence

I'm reading philosophical articles about historical science. It feels like that the authors pick the most complicated words in a gloss, and than compete to see who succeed to wirte most difficult words in an article. The language in those texts are in no way similar to the articles i'm used to read. Different structur of sentences and different words. My vocabulary becomes larger for each day on this compulsary course in history of science. Soon I will understand what the authors are trying to convey.
Well, It's always hard to get used to a new topic, but if one succeed it feels really good!

Of coarse, i'm not reading those articles all day. I'm also writing an article about  biomass allocation in arctic plants. The same issue as in my bachelor thesis. I'm more or less rewriting the thesis, making it to an article. Hopefully it will be published in the journal "Plant ecology and diversity".

Except for studying, I'm taking a yoga-mindfulness course. First time was to day. I think i will enjoy!

Mindfulness will help me not feeling flatted when reading the very complicated articles! =)

Interesting blog!

For you who speak Swedish!

http://bytfil.blogspot.com/2012/01/ojda.html?showComment=1326979778877#c8925544792492802194

Skating on a lake in värmland

I wanted to show you this picture as well. In retrospekt, it was amazing... But I remeber that I found it difficult. Thanks to Lars, Karin and Rolf who came there with me and helped me!

Christmas holiday is over

Me and Lars in Stockholm, mom's 50 birthday party

Today is the day when a new semester starts. I had  holiday from the 21/12 untill today. That was necessary! I went to the swedish mountain for skiing (both downhill and cross-country skiing), we had a great time. I also, first time in life, tried skating on a lake in värmland. It was a bit difficult, but I enjoyed. My mother just turned 50, we visit her in stockholm last weekend, nice to see my family again!  


My bachelor thesis is done. I'm very glad!


So today, I'll start writing an article. Same subject as my Bc thesis. Hope I'll get it published. I'll also start on a new project, about mycorrhiza in the swedish mountains. Don't know exactly the question at issue but I guess I'll soon find out. The two articles should be done before summer. And I will also, this semester, take a one week course in Lund. Hope I'll manage to do everything.  

First time I tried skating. I will try again I promise!

Anyway, the christmas holiday was great. I've learned that I suffer more from stress than I thought. I have to learn to relax more, otherwise I won't manage to complete this semester in good health. Let's see how it works.

Skiing in Herjedalen. Very nice day!