Research stay with the TEB Lab

From April to July 2025, Franka Gaiser, a PhD candidate from the University of Bayreuth in Germany, stayed with the TEB Lab in Bellaterra, Barcelona. When Franka moved to the Universitat de Autònoma de Barcelona and the CREAF Institute a temperature and culture shock was inevitable because she came straight out of arctic winter on the little island of Tromsø in Norway. There were probably as many people in the university alone as there were in the whole of Tromsø. Fortunately, Franka managed not to get lost in the labyrinth of corridors and found her way to her workplace every day.

Her research stay with the TEB Lab began with a group retreat in La Garrotxa. Amidst the green hills of the former volcanic landscape, everyone racked their brains over old and new research topics, and Franka was immediately accepted into the small but excellent TEB Lab working group. This was followed by productive weeks in front of the computer, during which Franka worked on a biogeographical study investigating changes in functional diversity after the colonisation of islands using fossil pollen data. For the first time, Franka had the opportunity to see herself what fossil pollen look like under the microscope of the TEB Lab.

Time flew fast: Franka accustomed rapidly to her new everyday life together with the TEB Lab group starting with Monday’s lab meetings, through incredibly early lunches for Spanish standards at 12:30 to weekend trips discovering Barcelona and its beautiful surroundings. At the end of her stay, Franka presented her work to the Global Change Unit at CREAF and received a lot of constructive feedback, which will certainly help the study to a successful conclusion. With one eye laughing and one eye crying, Franka has returned to Bayreuth and is working hard on publishing the very same study.

Her research stay with the TEBLab was very informative, inspiring and motivating. She would like to take this opportunity to express her sincere thanks to the TEB Lab, Dr. Sandra Nogué, and Dr. Sandra Garcés-Pastor from University de Barcelona, who made this stay possible and turned it into something special. Franka would also like to thank the German academic exchange service DAAD, which provided financial support for the project with a research grant for doctoral students. We will definitely keep in touch and are looking forward to continuing our collaboration!

Author

Franka Gaiser, visiting PhD student