My time in Ny-Ålesund is drawing to a close, and it’s hard to process how much these weeks have impacted me. Waking up each day to the Arctic’s stark beauty, with the constant rush of wind and towering glaciers in every direction, has transformed both my work and my perspective. Beyond the cold, the mist, and the endless tasks in the field, there’s been a sense of belonging I didn’t expect to find in such a remote place.
While I am excited to return to Ghent for the lab work that awaits me—processing the spiking experiment results and analysing the DNA and RNA samples from our two sites—it’s hard to leave behind the environment that has been both a challenge and a muse.
Despite the scale of a PhD, reducing my time here to that would not do it justice as I have learnt so much more than just science.
The importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in science
In addition to my own sampling, I assisted a PhD researcher (and dear friend), Lisa, from the University of Edinburgh, at a nearby research site just 1 kilometer east from the village. Her research focuses on the effect of fertilisation on vegetation–fungi interactions, known as mycorrhiza, which are symbiotic relationships between plant roots and fungi. It’s quite beautiful how intimate this relationship is: The fungi attach to the roots and essentially expand the plant's root system, helping it absorb more water and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus from the nutrient-poor Arctic soil. In return, the fungi receive sugars and carbohydrates produced by the plant through photosynthesis.
How do I assist Lisa? Well, I collect soil cores for her from plots with varying fertilisation treatments to analyse how these plant-fungi interactions change at different depths, targeting specific Arctic plant genera like Cassiopeia and Dryas. I also assist her to set up new experimental plots, marking areas for future studies on how fertilisation might alter the delicate balance between the plants and their fungal partners.
Credits: Ruben Van Daele
This collaboration underscores the importance of interdisciplinary research, where combining expertises in different fields deepens our understanding of complex ecosystems. Despite focusing on the same substance—soil— Lisa and I explore such different worlds, and we learned so much from each other. This theme of collaboration was a constant throughout my three weeks in Ny-Ålesund. A quick anecdote: At some point I found myself measuring cosmic radiation for Austrian researchers who needed baseline data from a boat in the middle of the fjord, so I took their device with us on one of our trips. It’s these kinds of unexpected collaborations that science thrives on, driven not only by intellectual exchange but by the friendships and shared passions that keep us all moving forward.
Beyond the science, I’ve come to appreciate the friendships formed in Ny-Ålesund. Whether it was helping Austrian researchers measure cosmic radiation from a boat or chatting with the team over late dinners, it’s been these connections that made the harsh conditions and long days easier to manage. Science, after all, is as much about human collaboration as it is about data collection.
Credits: Ruben Van Daele
What’s Next?
The quiet, workless moments here are rare, but when they come, they’re worth savouring. There’s a raw beauty to Ny-Ålesund that’s impossible to capture in words. I’ve spent some evenings just sitting by the water, watching icebergs drift by, while fog glides over the mountains and the ever-present midsummer sun casts the landscape in shades of pink and orange. In a place like this, you feel small, but in a good way—reminded that the world is much bigger than the problems we face. It’s a stark contrast to the fast-paced, always-connected life I left behind. Out here, things move slower. The Arctic teaches patience, resilience, and surprisingly, that despite its apparent inertia, that change is inevitable. And so is all the lab work ahead...
Back in the lab, I’ll be extracting DNA and RNA, to study how the snow-fences and open top chambers affect the (active) communities present in the soils. Additionally, the spiking experiment alone will provide months’ worth of microscopy and modelling to power through. But I’m eager to see how these shifts in nematode and protist communities will impact the broader ecosystem. Will the Arctic’s soils release more carbon as these tiny organisms spring to life in the warmer, wetter soils? Whatever the answers are, I’m grateful for the chance to have visited Ny-Ålesund, to witness this remote world firsthand. The Arctic may be far from home, but it’s shown me more about myself—and about the planet—than I could have imagined. The work is tough, the conditions unforgiving, but there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. I’ll be back next June to continue the work, comparing the results of this late summer campaign with those of early summer. The colours will be different, the landscape subtly transformed, but the story unfolding within the soil will continue. The Arctic has changed me, and with every passing moment in this Anthropocene, it’s changing too.
Credits: Ruben Van Daele
As the sun dips low on the horizon, casting golden light across the tundra, I find myself thinking that maybe the Arctic wind isn’t just whispering—it’s telling us to listen closely.
If you’d like to do so, you can check out https://downandoutinsvalbard.wordpress.com/. Here, you can find more about the daily life of a soil ecologist in this unique corner of the world—completed with my introspective ramblings, descriptions of propeller plane rides, boat expeditions, polar bear encounters, and various little anecdotes.
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