Nature’s communication is difficult for humans to understand
Pulli uses a fume hood to prepare his soil samples. He pulls a clump of soil and roots from a paper bag and places it in a sieve. He starts with a four-millimetre screen, working the sample through the holes, and then switches to a two-millimetre screen to ensure that only fines remain.
”The next step is to determine the organic content and acidity of the soil”, he explains.
I ask Pulli what his thoughts are on people like myself who can name very few species and only see a fraction of the natural life that a biologist sees. Being a polite young man, Pulli phrases his answer carefully:
”I find the idea of people not noticing nature odd. I get that people might not be able to name many species. Still, I struggle to comprehend how someone could just completely ignore the natural environment around them”, he says.
”My girlfriend is a chemist, and I have noticed she sees the world differently. We have had some very interesting conversations about how people in different academic fields pay attention to different things.”
Despite his young age, Pulli has noticed a loss of biodiversity in Finnish nature just within his lifetime.
”I follow the observations of other birders online and have helped to compile annual lists of bird sightings. It is clear that some species’ numbers are declining.”
Researchers of biodiversity loss know that one in nine species and one in two habitats are endangered in Finland. Species are becoming endangered especially in Southern Finland on the one hand and in Northwest Lapland on the other.
”Nature has ways of telling us when it is unwell, but the clues are indirect and take a long time to get across. While humans can give clear warnings to each other, such as ‘Do not do that; you will hurt yourself’, the feedback from nature is more subtle, less systematic and more complex to interpret. That makes understanding what nature is trying to tell us so difficult.”
”A biologist is like an interpreter between man and nature”, Pulli says.