Construction has started on Ecotron+, a series of unique ecosystem chambers that allow scientists to perform environmental and climate research. The new infrastructure should attract interest within the international scientific community to Flanders. The Ecotron+ project is the next step in the development of the Field Research Centre of the park and Hasselt University (UHasselt). This centre is also part of Limburg’s sustainable tourism strategy.

Workers have already started erecting an ecosystem measuring tower at the park’s main gateway. This tower, called Connecterra and about five metres high, will collect data on the relationship between the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the biodiversity of the heathland. At the end of next year, Connecterra should be connected to the 12 ecosystem chambers of the Ecotron+ project. Together with labs and offices for researchers, this infrastructure will make up the prestigious Field Research Centre.

Via the Flemish government’s Hercules Foundation, minister for innovation Ingrid Lieten is contributing €3.2 million to the establishment of Ecotron+, which will cost around €5 million in total. The rest of the funding comes from UHasselt and Limburg Sterk Merk, a foundation that supports economic development projects in the province.

The ambitions are high. “We may not have a tropical rainforest or a coral reef in Flanders, but we can create top facilities that have an international impact,” says project co-ordinator Natalie Beenaerts of UHasselt’s Centre for Environmental Sciences. Beenaerts is negotiating with several universities from abroad that are interested in using the new installations for research projects.

There actually are many forms of ecotrons, a name that refers to any unit designed for ecosystem research under confined, controlled environmental conditions. What makes the chambers of Ecotron+ especially innovative is that their domes, which are made of a transparent Teflon material, let in daylight. The French city of Montpellier is the only other place to have a similar installation.

Monoliths of heathland ground, dug out at the park, will be installed inside the chambers, about five metres wide. The blocks of soil are put in lysimeters, vessels than enable researchers to measure the rate of downward water movement and collect this water for analyses. The purpose is to use each of the 12 chambers simultaneously for the same experiment over a period of several years. The focus will be to study the consequences of climate change for biodiversity.

“We can replicate different conditions that are possible in the future by, for example, changing the temperature, humidity or CO2 concentration in different chambers,” explains Beenaerts. “By constantly monitoring the separate situations, we can compare the evolutions to those in a chamber where we didn’t manipulate these parameters. This way, we can predict the repercussions of climate change.”

The detailed data can help research in diverse fields such as ecology, geography, geology and ecotoxicology. There is, for example, little known about the consequences of climate change for micro-organisms in the soil, such as bacteria. Furthermore, this will be the first heathland location where greenhouse gases will be monitored, although heathland is a prominent ecosystem in Western Europe.

Researchers will have lab facilities and offices on the terrain at their disposal. For students, the innovative infrastructure of the Field Research Centre will also provide an intriguing way to learn about biodiversity and climate. “We hope to organise internships, summer schools and excursions for university or college students from different kinds of study areas, from biology to tourism,” says Beenaerts. Limburg’s Provincial Nature Centre will assemble educational packages for primary and secondary schools.

To develop the Ecotron+, UHasselt’s Centre for Environmental Sciences worked with the Plant and Vegetation Research group at Antwerp University, non-profit Regionaal Landschap Kempen en Maasland and the Flemish agency for nature and forests. The Field Research Centre also plays an important role in the “Master Terhills” project by Limburg investment agency LRM. LRM plans to create a large ecological hub for sustainable tourism in the region.

It is hoped that the impressive 1,000 square-metre Ecotron+ chambers will attract a broad public interested in ecology. National park rangers will be kept up to date with how the research evolves so they can inform the tourists they guide around the park or visitors who stop there on a cycling or walking trip. In the visitor centre, a large information screen will convert a live stream of scientific parameters into understandable data on life in the chambers.

www.uhasselt.be/fieldresearchcentre