Live, from the Ecotron! 

For the next couple of weeks I am in Montpellier, France working at the amazing CNRS Ecotron facility. The project stems from a collaboration of many european partners who are interested in circadian rhythms of ecosystem fluxes. Hopefully, our experiments will improve the basic understanding of how plant and soil CO2 and water fluxes are regulated, thus improving general ecosystem models. It is also fun to think about how ecosystems rely on internal time cycles to function- is there a competitive advantage? Can we see this expressed at the gene and RNA level? Do soil microbes synchronize their clocks to the dominant vegetation? Maybe these are the next questions to answer.

As you can see in the pictures below the Ecotron allows you to monitor entire intact monoliths removed from the field in isolated chambers-with replicates! Below, the monoliths are placed on lysimeters allowing for a pretty tight water balance, and of course, the data are collected continuously. It doesn't hurt that the facility is located within a beautiful landscape in a region where great food and wine are all around! 

My 4am to 5pm shifts at the LiCor have just ended so I look forward to a bit of rest, then I will take a look at some of the data, of which there are plenty, in the coming days.