Author Archives: Robin Heinen

When the green multiplies

Roughly eight months per year, I’m just waiting. It’s dark outside, so it’s even darker inside. I’m waiting for the first rays of spring sunlight, for the days to become longer, for my plants to enter beast mode. Spring is the time of growth, and those four precious months where something finally happens are amazing.Continue reading “When the green multiplies”

No more excuses

Writing a book is something that has always ranked pretty high on my lifetime achievement list. Maybe this is one of the reasons why I was so proud when I published my PhD dissertation. (Or maybe it was because it’s a great achievement on many other levels.) No matter how awesome it felt, (perhaps obviously)Continue reading “No more excuses”

Alarming insect declines

Over the course of the past five years, many scientific papers have been written about insect declines – some simply reporting patterns in observational data, while others have adopted rigorous monitoring combined with measurements of potential factors contributing to shifts in insect diversity and abundance. There are debates ongoing between entomologists and conservationists as toContinue reading “Alarming insect declines”

Plant talk

I just finished a 3.5 hour drive this evening, to the university town of Jena, where we are currently running a tansy chemodiversity field experiment alongside the bigger, older, boringly named, yet much better-known ‘Jena Experiment’. Briefly I considered spending the night in Lederhose, just so I could tell people I slept in Lederhose. AsContinue reading “Plant talk”

The transition

When you become a parent, you will go through a transition, and this is not a transition by choice. It’s a transition that just happens more or less naturally. Once you have kids, hanging out with the people without kids suddenly becomes a different thing. Your childless friends don’t understand you, and while you stillContinue reading “The transition”