Resolving conflicts between food security and biodiversity conservation under uncertainty (ConFooBio)
Funded by an ERC Starting Grant to Nils Bunnefeld for 5 years from 1st September 2016
Find out more about the project and how to apply for the postdocs here
Luc Bussiere, University of Stirling
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
In a post-apocalyptic future, what might happen to life if humans left the scene? After all, humans are very likely to disappear long before the sun expands into a red giant and exterminates all living things from the Earth. Continue reading
These last two weeks I have been lucky enough to be at two workshops that could not have been more different. One was surrounded by the high mountains of the French and Swiss Alps and the other one close to the flat muds of the Wadden Sea at the Danish-German border. Both landscapes are equally inspiring and I was massively looking forward to broadening my horizon and being inspired by two workshops in such great settings.
Come and join us during the next 2 days for an exciting programme of PhD student talks and invited speakers from the Universities of Durham, Glasgow, Newcastle, St Andrews and Stirling, together with the British Geological Survey and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology,
IAPETUS Doctoral Training Partnership Conference & Workshop
Stirling Court Hotel
20th to 21st April 2015
Download the IAPETUS conference programme
by Rebeka Mayhew
Today marks five weeks for me on the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Barro Colorado Island in Panama and surveying the bird communities in the Barro Colorado Nature Monument. I am one of Daisy Dent’s PhD students and I am currently in Panama to examine how bird species and their functional composition changes in regenerating forests. Barro Colorado Island (BCI) is located in the artificial Lake Gatun in the middle of the Panama Canal.
Continue reading
A buff-tailed bumblebee approaches a flower of the buzz-pollinated buffalo bur. © Vallejo-Marín.
By Mario Vallejo-Marin
It is often said that bumblebees should not be able to fly. Their heavy bodies and relatively small wings provided an early challenge to aeronautic buffs in explaining how these furry insects were able to take off, let alone manoeuvre in the air while searching for food among flowers. Yet, bumblebees are accomplished flyers, and their success in the air is in part due to strong thoracic muscles that allow them to beat their wings faster than a neuron can fire. But these flight muscles are also responsible for a little known trick that only bees can do: they can pollinate flowers using high frequency vibrations. Continue reading
Posted by Ana Nuno. Text also posted at Imperial College Conservation Science
Some time ago I blogged about my PhD research on managing social-ecological systems under uncertainty. I used the conservation of harvested ungulate species in the Serengeti, Tanzania, as a case study to investigate the importance of considering multiple types and sources of uncertainty when making conservation decisions. Far from being simply an interesting academic question, I’d argue that the need of acknowledging the social-ecological context and uncertainty in which conservation interventions take place has never been greater. Hear me out… Continue reading