Author Archives: Koen Hufkens

About Koen Hufkens

I’m a research associate at Harvard University where my time is divided between modelling plant phenology across various biomes in response to climate change, being the lab geek and intrepid open source hardware and software developer.

Tropical trees: a complex story

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Koen Hufkens

In most pictures on Season Spotter, the only evergreen trees you see have needle leaves. These trees keep their needles year-round and add new ones in a seasonal flush. However, evergreen broad-leaf trees in the tropics often show more complex … Continue reading →

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Jungle Rhythms: find the rhythm of tropical trees

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Koen Hufkens

This week I launched a new Zooniverse project, Jungle Rhythms, that aims to digitize thousands of pages of detailed historical observations of the life cycle of trees in Africa. Belgian scientists were stationed at the Yangambi Research Station in what … Continue reading →

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Human perception and autumn colors

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Koen Hufkens

This year seems to be the brightest and most spectacular display of autumn colors in a long time. But are we right in thinking so? We often perceive the world differently from it’s physical (absolute) reality. This is easily illustrated … Continue reading →

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Modeling grassland growth

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Koen Hufkens

The phenology of deciduous forests is similar year to year. In it’s simplest form, modeling the influence of climate on phenology can therefore be modeled as discrete events, such as leave emergence in the spring. However, the appearance of leaves … Continue reading →

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Layer cake: on canopy gaps, leaf area, and photosynthesis

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Koen Hufkens

By now you are familiar with PhenoCams. However, a few extraordinary cameras exist in the network. In general, PhenoCams track seasonality and the structure of the vegetation in a top-down fashion, mostly looking down onto the the top of the … Continue reading →

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