New mainland location – Šibenik
Having spent two weeks in „isolation” on Kornati Islands, on 13 May Jelena, Marko, Lina and Toni returned to dry land. Our colleagues from the Public Institution Kornati National Park transferred us to Murter, where we were met by Dario, and together we went to Šibenik, more precisely to Ruđer Bošković Institute’s research station in Martinska. There we spent a couple of days collecting ants in the same standardized manner alongside a 100m-long transect. Since the same sampling method was used on the islands, this will enable us to compare island and mainland communities.
We spent the first day browsing several potential locations around the Šibenik area. We were looking for locations with similar geographical orientation and vegetation as the ones we covered on Kornati. Eventually we decided on a location close to Vodice, where we set up a transect and started sampling. Even though the temperature was as one would expect for mid-May, it was accompanied by strong winds which prevented us from flying our drone.
The next two days were spent in processing the transect and installing measuring devices that will be collecting data on temperature and soil humidity. Similar to our previous fieldwork, after returning to our accommodation each day, we spent the rest of the afternoon testing for critical thermal minimums and maximums by using thermal dry baths.
Having finished our work in Šibenik, we returned to Zagreb, where we immediately started preparing for another fieldwork as new field trips were only a week away. This time we are splitting in two groups – one group going to Mljet and the other one to Brijuni.
Setting up the transect
Thermal camera imaging
