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San Jose, Costa Rica, February 2019. We rented a house in Curridabat, a generally safe area of the city in preparation for our three-month campaign to the ‘Estacion Experimental Forestal Horizontes’.

Isodrones is part of the huge B2 experiment when a complete rainforest is exposed to an experimental drought and subsequently rewetted from below and above. Listen hear to Kathi explain what she’s up to over there!

I am currently completing my master’s degree in Integrated River Basin Management at CATIE in Costa Rica, thanks to the thesis topic provided by Dr. Christian Birkel, I had the great pleasure of meeting and participating with the Isodrones research team led by Dr.

rocket science ;) ;) ;) Last week (9/29 to 10/2) Kathi and me attended the annual meeting of the German Stable Isotope Association in Dresden, Germany (https://www.gasir.de). The meeting spans methodological aspects and practical applications of all stable isotopes and is a great chance to interact with people from different disciplines that are working on isotope methods.

rocket science ;) ;) ;) It was a great experience for the Isodroners Kathi Kühnhammer and Matthias Beyer to attend this prestigious conference and present our first results. Highlight of the conference was definitely the presentation of one of the Isopopes, Roberto Gonfiantini who presented some updates on the long-known Craig and Gordon Model.

During this time I was involved in different tasks like taking soil and tree (stump, roots) samples, measuring soil moisture and soil fluxes, irrigating the study site, leading the construction and decorating the Isodrones’ “caseta” (wooden hut), digitalizing data, assisting as Spanish interpreter and translating documents.

The ‘Estacion Experimental Forestal Horizontes’ (EEFH, https://www.acguanacaste.ac.cr/biodesarrollo/programa-de-restauracion-y-silvicultura/estacion-experimiental-forestal-horizontes), located in Guanacaste, the driest region of Costa Rica (~ 1700 mm/y mean precipitation and about six months without any drop of rain). The station was established in order to investigate and manage the valuable dry forests, that are often recognized less valuable compared to rainforests – which is complete nonsense.

I first came in touch with the Isodrones project when Maren Dubbert took me with her to Sweden after I had just handed in my Master Thesis. As I really enjoyed working in a team with so many kind and knowledgeable people that already had a lot of crazy and innovative ideas in their heads, I was excited to join the Isodrones Team as a PHD student.

A jump into the unknown for a young researcher. In September 2017, three researchers came together to celebrate the official award of my Freigeist Fellowship in the castle of Herrenhausen in Hannover.

this year from February to April I had the opportunity to do an internship with Isodrones in Costa Rica. During the field campaign in the “Estación Experimiental Forestal Horizontes” I could get my first impressions of current and innovative research, learn a lot and experience a unique nature.