temporalecology

[temporalecology]

Day 2 of the Open Source Hardware Summit 2025

Day 2 of the Open Source Hardware Summit featured multiple panels. Of which, I attended one on Environmental Monitoring and another on Medical Devices.

Notably, I learned about the Mayfly data logging board designed by Shannon Hicks of Stroud Water Research Center in Pennsylvania. Stroud currently has a network of a few hundred of these devices monitoring a large watershed. I've yet to see such a customizable and open source data logging board at a relatively accessible price. Not only can you connect almost any environmental sensor, but they have also included methods to remotely upload data to remote databases using affordable monthly cellular plans. Despite making data logging more accessible, Shannon made it clear that these tools are still inherently left to exist in the elements. A routine maintenance schedule should be followed to make sure that loggers and sensors are in working order and not being left to rot.

Incorporating open source ideals into a field as regulated as the medical device industry was something I had never heard of. But the panelists, such as Dr. Lukas Winter, showed that even medical imaging technology can be open-sourced. Along with other collaborators at the Open Source Imaging Initiative, Lukas has developed a fully open source MRI scanner. While regulations still complicate the role of devices like these to be used outside of a research context, it's still a remarkable resource to learn from.

Beyond the conference, it was great to explore bits of Edinburgh and take in its beautiful architecture. The long summer days and the general consensus to thank the drivers while hopping off the bus reminded me fondly of Vancouver. There's nothing like a bit of travel to make you appreciate home a little more.

-Adam

[temporalecology]

Day 1 of the Open Source Hardware Summit 2025

The first day of the Open Source Hardware Summit of 2025 was full of amazing speakers!

Talks were given from engineers, scientists, and enthusiasts who shared their hard work, and of course, their designs. The creativity of the speakers was inspiring and I'm excited to dive deeper into the details of their public designs in the coming weeks. Their efforts have modernized vintage knitting machines, proposed methods to affordably assess insect biodiversity in tropical ecosystems, and repurposed computer mice sensors to study fluid dynamics - just to give a taste of breadth covered.

While I thoroughly enjoy hearing about the gritty details designs, talks on the realities of the 'Open' communities were refreshing. From a more human level, it was interesting to hear how quality control moderators of popular Open Source libraries often experience burn-out. It's easy to forget that many free and open tools are really being maintained by people, generally volunteers. And I'm certainly guilty of not giving them adequate thank-you's.

Day 1 left me eager for Day 2 to hear from panelists covering Environmental Monitoring and Medical Devices.

-Adam

[temporalecology]

I'm excited to share that I will be presenting a poster for our work on the Tree Imaging Machine (TIM) at this year's Open Source Hardware Summit. While the Summit has generally been held in North America, this year's will be in Edinburgh. With just one layover, I arrived in Scotland for the first time. I'm looking forward to seeing the Open Source work of other keen makers and sharing some of what the Summit had to offer.

-Adam

[temporalecology]

Summer is here, which means lots of new happenings here at the Temporal Ecology Lab. Christophe's project measuring shoot elongation and budburst is continuing to monitor this seasons growth, with the help of new Worklearn students Devina and Nolan. Core processing is also moving along well in the lab, with new cores sanded and scanned each day.

[temporalecology]

In 2015, when Lizzie was at Harvard, she started a citizen science project called Treespotters, aimed at monitoring trees at the Arnold Arboretum. Today, I have the privilege of leveraging the valuable data that the TreeSpotters have been collecting for nearly a decade to better understand how phenological phases relate to tree growth.

To collect growth data, Lizzie, Mao, and I travelled to Boston at the end of April to core the trees that these dedicated citizen scientists have been observing for the past 10 years. It was a pleasure to meet the Treespotters in person and to hear about the unique relationships they’ve formed with the trees they’ve been visiting so regularly.

-Christophe

[temporalecology]

Ken's initiation to the BC mountains! Mao, Britany, Avery, Ken, and I went snowshoeing at Dog Mountain last weekend. The temperature was perfect, and there was lots of snow. It was great!

-Christophe

[temporalecology]

Pretty gorgeous last full day here ...

And amazingly productive! We've got trees growing in response to growing season length (deconvolving the climate response of tree growth from its other underlying complex processes) and HMM seeds (allow for messy seed traps to help us see the hidden state of masting or non-masting).

[temporalecology]

I (Lizzie) and Victor are at BIRS this week, I will aim to post a few more photos at https://gcecology.tumblr.com/.

BIRS work

Remarkably only the first photo here is staged (the one outside).

[temporalecology]

Egret retreat! We got some models running!

First Egret retreat of the year! We went to Sooke and stayed at this lovely Airbnb. Thanks to Victor, we had a fantastic decision tree, and finally got some models up and running! There were lots of highs: talking stats over beers, watching the Olympics opening, Mike’s online office hour, wonderful dinner chats and Snooker! There were also a few lows—yes, USDA, I’m talking about you!

Overall, we had a great time with plenty of memorable moments. Looking forward to the next retreat!

[temporalecology]

Start of year 2 of Fuelinex!

To prevent the trees from being restricted by their pot size and thus affecting biomass allocation patterns, we had to repot ALL of them—from 2-gallon to 3-gallon pots. It was a huge task, and thankfully, I wasn’t alone!

A massive thank you to Colette, Justin, Lizzie, Mao, Miah, Mark, Ken, and Victor for your help. Despite the intense rain and mud, we turned it into a great repotting party—capped off with some well-earned pizza and refreshing drinks.

-Christophe

[temporalecology]

Mao and Christophe's First EcoEvo Retreat!

We had a great time there. It was wonderful to meet people and learn about the research happening at UBC and other universities. For me, it was also the first time seeing a salmon run! I'd heard about it a lot, but it was really impressive to see one in real life. Salmon are incredible creatures, they know their purpose and follow it until the very end of their lives.

The theme of this year's costume party was "Souped-up Species." Apparently, only Nick's costume really fit the theme.

Avery came as a squirrel with a jet pack, and Christophe was a wizard trying to bring dead trees back to life. I dressed as a single giant acorn, taking all the reproductive resources from the tree and wouldn't drop until I grew into a seedling. Well, it seems like a not-very-successful evolutionary strategy, since squirrels already have jet packs!

Looking forward to the next retreat, and we'll bring our science with us next time!

-Mao

[temporalecology]

We’ve started mounting tree cores!

Just realized how many cores we've collected this summer. A big thanks to Mark for helping me out.

Core mounting has been very meditative. Hopefully, we'll be able to get all the cores mounted by the end of the year!

-Mao

[temporalecology]

The end of 2024 Fuelinex

This week, the last trees for the fall treatment of Fuelinex have been removed from the climate chambers. These trees experienced warmer autumn temperatures compared to those that remained under ambient conditions. This marks the last milestone of this first year of treatments. In 2025, they will remain at ambient temperature for the whole year!

-Christophe

[temporalecology]

Tree ring analysis is ongoing!

A couple of years ago, a common garden project was started at Arnold Arboretum to study how climate change will affect different phenological events (e.g. leaf-out, flowering). Different species were grown from seeds until they were harvested last year.

Lizzie, Deirdre, and Dan collected tree cores and cookies last year. I am now very excited to include this project in my master's!

I am in the preliminary steps of analyzing the tree rings of these cookies. For this, I sanded them until there were no more scratches so the rings could be easily readable. Then, to get ultra-high-resolution images of these cookies, I am using Tina, the tree imaging device that Adam and other undergrads have built. It is amazing to see it going!

-Christophe

[temporalecology]

Leaf colouring in the climate chambers!

The warming fall treatment is currently ongoing for Fuelinex! I am interested in finding out whether earlier springs and delayed autumns lead to growth increments. To investigate this, half of the trees in my experiment are currently housed in climate chambers under warmer temperatures, while the other half remain at ambient temperature at Totem Field.

With the invaluable help of my colleagues Mao, Mark, and Ken, we have been monitoring senescence for the past five weeks. Specifically, we are tracking the chlorophyll content and leaf greenness.

Here are some pictures I took in the chambers, showcasing the trees' beautiful leaf colors!

-Christophe

[temporalecology]

Britany and I visited Mt. Rainier again at the end of September to install some leftover dendrometers and observe tree cones. Our trees are too tall for us to see any cones at the top, so we need to think of a better method to quantify individual cones...

We finally got the chance to go to Sunrise to catch the sunrise and were unexpectly surprised to encounter a mountain goat! It was a wonderful morning that truly calmed my heart. Thanks, mountain.

-Mao

[temporalecology]

August at Mount Rainier!

Amazing video by Avery Kruger of field work this August at Mount Rainier. It made me long for field seasons, which always felt good to me at the beginning, so boring and exhausting later and then remembered inevitably as happy and wonderful.