October Issue

Oct ober 2017

GOES Global Opport unit ies for Ecological Sust ainabilit y

W rit t en, edit ed and designed by undergraduat e science st udent s

Table of cont ent s Scient ific communit y and fun....................................................................................1 Nat ional Collegiat e Soils Cont est in t he US....................................................2-3 Designing fut ure proof crops wit h micro-CT Scanning.............................4-5 Working wit h farmers and visit ing Plant Clinics in Nepal............................6 Using ImageJ t o measure t he lengt hs of rept iles and amphibians............7 A cit izen science st ory...........................................................................................8-10 Open access, free guidebooks for invasive species by CABI.....................11 Harvey, Irma and t he act ualisat ion of climat e change.........................12-13 The import ance of Horseshoe Crab blood.................................................14-15 Celebrat ing animals in research.....................................................................16-18 Assignment s t hat raise awareness: t he case of t he Barn Owl...........19-21 Pigeons - t he misconcept ion...................................................................................22 GapSummit 2018..........................................................................................................23 The plight of manxies..........................................................................................24-25 Loggerhead t urt le conservat ion in Greece................................................26-28 Meet Ed, GOES Co-Edit or.......................................................................................29

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Please be aware t hat t his is an independent , self-funded, open-access magazine and edit ed by undergrad st udent s. Pict ures are subject t o copyright .

All pictureson thispage are

by Wahaj Mahmood-Brown

Scient ific communit y and fun Foreword by Juniper Kiss, Editor-in-Chief, BSc Plant Biology, Aberystwyth University

The first issue of GOES was published only a year ago and what a year it has been. Going from publishing six short articles and the rest of the issue written by myself, we have grown into a great team of science students.

We are incredibly lucky to be science students - we get to prepare for a career where we get to do what we are passionate about.

Yet, we are also being prepared for the tough reality that we will be under constant pressure; during our undergrad, graduate and postgraduate studies and then finding a job will be depressing, then keeping our jobs, competing with colleagues etc.

How are we t o keep our mot ivat ion t hen?

By supporting each other and working together towards the common goal - to keep on having fun while working hard. I have been to conferences, workshops, courses, symposiums and summer schools over the past year

and every time I was reassured that the scientific community is a unique, fun bunch.

I spent a week on an intensive course on geometric morphometrics in Barcelona, Spain, arranged by Transmitting Science. To be living and studying together with scientists from across the world, seeing everyone sharing their research and asking for opinions - just

part of as there are no 'big fights', or researchers 'stealing others work' but people who come together, really want to learn from one another.

We also should not become 'pipetting robots', whatever can be done by machines, will be done by machines in a couple of decades but what we need to really focus on is to ask the right, most interesting questions.

"I have lotsof heroes: anyone and everyone who doeswhatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it."

Sylvia Earle makes you think 'this is how it should be'. On the last night we switched off our laptops, put away the work and just danced.

Another very special scientific community was at the Powdery Mildew (PM) Summer School, held in Eger, Hungary this September. In the introductory lecture the event organiser Prof Levente Kiss - with whom I share 50% of my genes said that the PM community is great to be

Collaborat e wit h t he people who mot ivat e you It was recommended to me to pick a desktop undergrad project, meaning to get data from the web, analyse it and it is done. Naturally, I did not listen. I started my project on brambles (subgenus Rubus), involving lots of sample collection trips, collaboration with international scientists, doing my genetic work in Hungary. I have had the opportunity to work with

amazing people from all walks of life and added to my research and my motivation. The quality of my work can be thanked to these people and the most important thing I recommend to fellow students is to go, talk to lecturers, researchers, ask for their opinion, help and think big!

Once you find the scientists who push you to do better science while having a laugh, all the frustration and pressure that comes with being a scientist, fades into the background.

We are a group of students here at GOES who support each other, we develop our writing skills together while having a great time. Read about Texas Tech University on the next pages who sponsored the printing of the current issue and about Ed's experience with GOES on the last page.

Hope you will enjoy our articles, share our work and become involved for the next issue!

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Nat ional Collegiat e Soils Cont est in t he US

by Juniper Kiss David Weindorf ?Soilsare developed; they are not merely an accumulation of debrisresulting from decay of rock and organic materials...

In other words, a soil isan entity - an object in nature which hascharacteristicsthat distinguish it from all other objects in nature.? by C.E.Millar and L.M.Turk, 1943 Last year I went on a pedeology field trip in Arizona and as the only biologist in the group, I developed a whole new appreciation for soil scientists. To see scientists with shovels, describing how different soil particles are layered on top of each other and then being able to tell what happened there millions years ago from - seemed to me like a real 'super power'.

David Weindorf

can be either constructional or erosional. Or to be precise; the constructional landform can be foodplain, stream terrace, W hat are t he compet it ors looking kame/esker, alluvial fan, beach at in t hese pit s? ridge, loass plain/hillslope, outwash National Collegiate Soils Contest They are thoroughly describing (1) plain, sand dune, lake plain or till (NCSC) was hosted by the soil morphology, (2) soil profile plain/drumlin/moraine. For a University of Kentucky in 1961. characteristics, (3) site biologist, it would take me days just Ever since, over 40 universities have characteristics, (4) soil classification to learn what these words and been involved with soil judging and (5) soil interpretation. Of each descriptions mean - and this is just through the American Society of of these sections, there are many one fraction of the contest! So Agronomy and the Soil Science characteristics to describe and test. re-thinking the 50 minutes for two Society of America. The contest For example, for the the Site sites - is a very short amount of lasts for several days, takes place in Characteristics, the first thing the time! somewhat secret locations and in team has to identify is the parent The 'Soil Taxonomy' section is sample pits. There is an individual material. In the 2017 cont est , held another, very challenging technical competition section where in Illinois, the parent material coud part of the contest. Have a look at contestants are assigned to be the following: alluvium, beach the primary reference book that different groups and rotate each deposit, colluvium, eolian sand, the undergrad student will know by other, 10 minutes in the pits, 10 glacial outwash, heart by the end of this minutes out, then again 10 minutes human-transported materials, in the pits, 10 minutes out then a 20 lacustrine deposit, loess, glacial till, competition, titled "Soil Taxonomy, USDA-NRCS Agricult ural minute minute, free-for-all session. pedisediment, orresiduum. Next Handbook". A friendlier handbook For group competition, the groups description is the landform which with nicer pictures is the So no surprise that one of the biggest events for a soils science undergraduate is to demonstrate their skills at the annual Nat ional Soil Judging Cont est .

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have 50 minutes to evaluate two sites with again a 10 minute in and out rotation.

"Illust rat ed Guide t o Soil Taxonomy".

The competitors, without a doubt, have 'super powers' and have been coached by their professors and spent a lot of time in the field. No wonder why this contest is regarded as the Olympics for soils science students. Typically 18-22 institutions and 80-100 students attend the NCSC each year!

Watch Between Earth and Sky - An Arctic Perspective, free soils science film about Arctic soils, produced by Dr David Weindorf, Associate Dean of Texas Tech:

Texas Tech Universit y This issue's sponsor, Texas Tech University in Lubbock, hosted the 50th contest in 2010 with a special program by Dr B. L. Allen, who helped establish the NCSC and was a participant of the first contest.

The printing cost of the curent issue is endorsed by the B.L Allen Endowment.

We cannot thank enough to the support and we will keep rooting for the Texas Tech's Soil Judging Team in the next round of NCSC!

Click here t o check out t he undergraduat e and mast er courses offered by t he Depart ment of Plant and Soil Science at Texas Tech Universit y

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Designing fut ure crops wit h micro-CT Scanning

by Nathan Hughes BSc Computer Science, Aberystwyth University It is estimated that global food product ion must increase by 50% in order to meet projected demand of the world?s population in 2050 (Chakraborty & Newton 2011).

Wheat alone contributes to 20% of calories consumed per-day, worldwide (Mergoum & Macpherson 2004). To meet this extreme demand we cannot rely on genetically modified crops, when there is so much media and public stigma. Therefore we must explore new technologies to help improve our crop yields (Evans 2009).

How can t his be useful for plant science longt erm?

There is no argument that science is constantly pushing itself to gather more data, with greater detail and higher accuracy; manually separating grains from a stalk is time consuming, suffers from scaling issues and needs a consistent work-force.Dissecting seeds with less than a millimeter thickness requires surgical precision. Solving both of these problems, micro-CT scanning provides an abundance of data and does it accurately. We also see that more complex traits can be measured which were not previously feasible through manual means (Hughes et al. 2017).

The agricultural industry has many challenges laid out before it; In addition to the growing world population and therefore demand in food and animal feed, there is also the pressure of climate change.

CT scanning has had in the medical Which continues to threaten field in regards to the likes of bone agricultural industry growth (Lobell structure and animal development et al. 2008).

(Li et al. 2017), there is more than The study of plant genetics has enough literature proving that this benefited from many substantial is a tried and tested method which advances in the last decade alone produces data good enough for (Belhaj et al. 2015), and as a result robust experiments. Additionally phenotyping technologies are being with so much work having been strained and tested. done in animal science, many methods being developed and In our research at Aberyst wyt h protocols created, a lot of the initial Universit y (Wales, UK), we are startup problems of a methodology developing micro-CT scanning as a have been taken care of, allowing method for generating previously unobtainable phenotypic information from several key food crops and other species of grass.

We found this to be a very successful method during our previous study, we were able to uncover 3D seed morphology and density information which was previously inaccessible ; we have thus-far used micro-CT to examine various effects of drought and heat stress on bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), vitreosity of durum wheat (Triticum durum) and genetic diversity of model grasses (Brachypodium distachyon).

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plant science to benefit more quickly and being able to focus solely on specific problems.

In order to see the potential of using micro-CT we need to design experiments which aim to be high-throughput. We see many facilities all around the world, such as the Nat ional Plant Phenomics Cent re (NPPC, Wales, UK). It aims to produce experiments with huge numbers of replicates, controls and parameters, in order to build a better picture and to answer questions more fully.

Moreover, we have seen great work being done at the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology (CPIB, Nottingham, UK), which produces a lot of research focused on the development of plant root structure in 3D. This has again, shown utility of CT in plant science and in a high-throughput manner.

We can clearly see that plant phenotyping research is eager to explore novel methods of data generation and with so much work already done by other scientific fields there is a clear path for researchers in plant science to pursue and benefit from new technologies.

CT image of a hops flower (Humuluslupulus) and willowherb (genus Epilobium).

LemnaTech aut omat ed plant phenot yping syst em at t he NPPC, Wales. Plant s can be imaged regularly t hroughout t heir ent ire life cycle result ing in t emporally resolved dat a on different aspect s of plant development .

Current 3D methods were found to be ill-suited for our goal of high-throughput science. We came across tools (such as ImageJ) which worked reasonably well, yet required a lot of manual input which was slow and time consuming and often contained many mistakes and errors.

Thus, we embarked on writing our own standard for working with crop and seed micro-CT scans.

There are software developed for this work but they are very expensive so we made our software to be completely free and open for anyone to use on GitHub: https://github.com/NPPC-UK /microCT_grain_analyser.

agreement rate with the human counters (which themselves had a large variation in some cases!) and it completed 188 scans in less t han an hour.

The grain analysing software we created works by correctly identifying the density of seeds and grains within a CT scan, isolating each individual grain and then extracting morphometric parameters in 3D.

The data which is generated from this, is ideally placed to be used in any number of statistical tests, comparisons or perhaps most interestingly in mapping the effects that genotype has on phenotype.

Allowing us to help augment and Our method has completely opened speed up identification and up a new avenue of data generation development in the fields of crop for crop science. During breeding and genetics. development we were constantly There is a great interest from crop concerned with the opportunity scientists in the morphology of cost of this technique and so we ran grains, their shape, size and density baseline tests, we took 3 can tell us a lot about their researchers and had them manually development, environment and open and examine 188, 3D images even give predictions into the of wheat plants and make notes. performance of the seed during its This t ook around t wo full work growth period. days per person t o do. The average recorded results from these manual As we designed our method measurements were what we used specifically for a wheat experiment, we were curious to how well it throughout testing. Our software could be adapted to work with produced results with a 97% other crops, how flexible and

accurate it would be when used on the likes of oats, ryegrass or millet.

Initial results from further experiments are promising and we plan on using this same method for several more studies.

References Belhaj, K., Chaparro-Garcia, A., Kamoun, S., Patron, N.J. and Nekrasov, V., , 2015.

Editing plant genomes with CRISPR/Cas9.

Current opinion in biotechnology, Vol 32, pp.76?84 Chakraborty, S. and Newton, A.C., 2011.

Climate change, plant diseases and food security: an overview: Climate change and food security. Plant pathology, Vol 60(1), pp.2?14 Evans, A., 2009. The Feeding of the Nine Billion: Global Food Security for the 21st Century, Chatham Historical Society Incorporated.

Hughes, N. et al., 2017. Analysis of wheat grain traits using X-ray micro computed tomography. Analysis of wheat grain traits using X-ray micro computed tomography.

Available at: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/research/ data-catalogue/a11df174-d73d-4443-a7fd -ab5b7039df79/ Li, Z., Kuhn, G., Schirmer, M., MĂźller, R., and Ruffoni, D., 2017. Impaired bone formation in ovariectomized mice reduces implant integration as indicated by longitudinal in vivo micro-computed tomography. PloS one, Vol 12(9), p.e0184835 Lobell, D.B., Burke, M.B., Tebaldi, C., Mastrandrea, M.D., Falcon, W.P. and Naylor, R.L., 2008. Prioritizing climate change adaptation needs for food security in 2030.

Science, Vol 319(5863), pp.607?610 Mergoum, M. and Macpherson, H.G., 2004.

Triticale Improvement and Production, Food and Agriculture Organisation

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Working wit h farmers and visit ing Plant Clinics in Nepal

by Juniper Kiss, BSc Plant Biology, Aberystwyth University

Rice planting isa lot of fun!

Nepalese agriculture has a lot of potential if scientific knowledge can reach small farm holders.

CABI?s Plantwise program that is implemented by the Plant Protection Directorate (PPD) is the first step for closing the gap between scientists and farmers.

In Nepal, 70% of the population is involved in agriculture. This statistics is simple, however when working in the mountains, with poor families ? growing food was their only way of survival. We had rice for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner with mostly potatoes and chilli peppers. Nothing comes from the shop. There are few jobs, so many people spend their time looking after their plants and sleeping. My host family had showers and taps but the families I worked with had only one hose, and all the water came from a river nearby. Most of the families have lost their houses and relatives in the earthquake in 2015 and now were living in ?sheds?, built from bamboo trees and metal plates.

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then seeing it in person. This summer I visited Nepal, volunteered on farms in marginalised communities while staying at a traditional host family. I helped them implement organic farming technique and I also learnt a great deal about agriculture in Nepal. In my last week, I visited the Plant Protection Directorate, part of the Ministry of Agricultural Development, met with Dr Dilli Ram Sharma director, attended two days of plant doctor training, put together and created a template for a monthly newsletter for reporting diseases in Nepal, visited a plant clinic for a day and worked together with Dr Jim Correll, from Arkansas University.

I asked a couple of questions from Dr Dilli Ram Sharma, PPD Director about challenges and opportunities in Nepal.

W hat is t he biggest challenge of plant prot ect ion in Nepal?

"The open boarder system, instead of having plant quarantine system, is providing the opportunities for I first heard about CABI?s Plantwise the informal trade which is program of plant clinics, where associated with the peoples' daily farmers can bring their crops and life and their culture too. In this get them diagnosed with the help of situation, there is always a big trained ?plan doctors?using tablets, challenge for Nepal to manage the when I worked at CABI in 2013. likelihoods of quarantine pests However, reading about a entry into the country. In addition worldwide program from brochures to this, we have conducted many and websites is quite different plant protection programs

throughout the country especially dealing with crop problems.

Management of quality advice to the farmers is another challenge for us."

Do you recommend fut ure int ernships for st udent s wit h scholarships t o visit plant clinics/ st udy plant pat hology?

"Of course, we are always happy to welcome abroad students to our country and eager to share our experiences on what we have. We will be always happy to establish networks for the mutual benefits to each other and hope for the contribution as well as collaboration from abroad professionals. We also recommend support for our working staffs to get benefits from visiting plant clinics and other Plantwise programs around the world."

Visiting and working in Nepal has truly been an extraordinary experience that made me transfer to a new university and study Plant Biology. So if any student has become interested in visiting Nepal, keep your eyes out for travel grants and get in touch with me or PPD to arrange visiting plant clinics!

Learn more about Plantwise: Get in touch:

Using ImageJ t o measure t he lengt hs of rept iles and amphibians

by Steven Allain, ARU graduate, MResEcology, Evolution and Conservation, Imperial College of London There are a number of standard lengths used to measure amphibians and reptiles, of which the most common are the total length and the snout t o vent lengt h (referred to as the SVL). Gaining these measurements can sometimes be easier said than done due to the nature of the animals in question. Some of them are diminutive in size, some are quite slippery or awkward to restrain whilst measuring and others may shed parts of their body if stressed.

Traditionally reptiles such as snakes were restrained and measured with lengths of rope, which isn?t the most accurate method when the animal is squirming in your hands.

Thankfully there is a free software package available called ImageJ, a free, user friendly software that analyses a single photograph to aid in the seemingly impossible task of amphibian measuring. This was used in combination with Fiji, distribution of ImageJ which includes a number of plugins to help facilitate the analysis of scientific images. With Fiji, all you have to do is take a photo of the individual alongside a reference object . This is usually a coin as they have fixed dimensions of which are well documented. As long as the animal you wish to measure and your

Setting the scale which is done by telling Fiji the diameter of a penny (20.3 mm).

reference object are in the same plane, then the measurement should be fairly reliable.

To achieve this, reptiles (and sometimes amphibians) are placed into a squash-box to restrain them whilst a photo is taken. For those of you wondering what a squash-box is, it?s just an imaginative name for a Tupperware container with a sponge inside used to keep the animal still whilst the photo that will be used for measurement purposes is taken. Once you?ve made your way home and uploaded

the pictures to your laptop/computer you can then process them. The Fiji graphic user interface is easy to navigate and you can get your results within minutes of beginning to process an image.

Firstly, set your scale using the reference object in the photo. Once you?ve done this, you can then draw a straight line, or a segmented one, along the length of the individual you wish to measure. Once you?ve done this you?re just a couple of clicks away from the measurement of the animal you?ve photographed and the line you?ve drawn. Whilst I?ve used this to get accurate measurements of frogs and slow worms, it can be used to absolutely anything.

Before you attempt something along these lines, there are plenty of instructional videos online on YouTube and guidance in the scientific literature to aid your progress with the image processing.

You can download ImageJ for free here: https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/download.html Starting to measure the length of specimens or objects such as this midwife toad tadpole

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A cit izen science st ory To increase biodiversity in university accommodations

by Geoffrey Morley, ARU In 2014, I attended a Science Festival talk by Alex Dittrich (lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge) on leafhoppers (Cicadellidae). AIt was afunny and charismatic presentation and these miniscule, yet perfectly formed herbivorous true bugs (Hemiptera) captured my imagination and directed my enthusiasm towards conservation for the first time in my life.

Hempit era is an order of insects that are characterised by their beak-like mouthparts, an adaptation that enables feeding by piercing and sucking. But they are only part of the web of organisms that make up the biodiversity of an urban backgarden, this project aimed to increase abundance across several orders of invertebrates by allowing grass to grow and it succeeded.

Being a frustrated sociologist, I had taken to learning about ecology through friends and felt what many of us do when faced with the facts of climate change, ?W hat can I do??.

Alex?s explanation of how an entire breeding population of the species he studied can be sustained for generations on a small plot of grass in a lab set my mind racing.

instead, we use a portion furthest from the house that could be cordoned off to minimise disruption from the residents.

To encourage the curiosity of the residents in the new habitats, and to increase the types of habitat available to insects and other invertebrates I decided to install I manage student accommodation wildflower beds. With log borders for Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and interpretation boards the and had at my disposal a great deal spaces at the bottom of the garden of grassy areas in the student house would be kept away from the gardens that students are unlikely mower and would be allowed to to make full use of during the grow with the grass. The plan was academic year that I could manage complete but I had no wildflower for biodiversity. Alex liked the idea seed. and together with other life science Hilary Conlan, one of the PhD students we visited all of the students helping me, had seen Kew gardens, recording which plants Gardens?Grow Wild campaign on and trees were there and BBC?s Countryfile and suggested I considering ways of improving the habitats. It seemed fair for both the contact them. Instead of getting their standard seed kit I got a visit invertebrates and the student from the manager of England residents that we don?t turn all of Community Groups, Vinny Ganley 8 the gardens into new habitat but

who suggested I apply as a community project to cover the full range of costs. Wow! Now I needed to find the community. The students were already there and would be involved every time they walked out of their back door by being confronted by the different habitats and the interpretation, but I suddenly had a lot of work to do and needed help. Having recently joined Transition Cambridge, I was introduced to another Anglia Ruskin alumna Jade Cawthray, a science communicator who had contacts and knew how to move the project along.

I had to find out which trees and wildfowers are native to Cambridge and which would be best to add to the gardens. Meanwhile, work parties were held to sow the wildflower seeds, leaving the rolled turf as dry bank habitat for ground nesting bees and an additional 64 mixed tree species were also

planted. We got into the Cambridge News and on local radio when we organised a bird and insect home building event at Wandlebury Country Park. I was learning so much and I wanted to expand the project.

first year went well. As invertebrates are very speciose, they require several different methods to make sure complete sampling. Vortex samplers are great, they are a like a petrol powered vacuum cleaner and look like a space cannon but even better Sampling and challenges they suck up everything in a few I enrolled on the Advanced Diploma 0.02m2 patch and drop them into a in Ecological Monitoring and cup for identification.

Conservation and Cambridge Now I?d always been a bit scared of University?s Institute for invertebrates, but underneath a Continuing Education. Together microscope even a Cranefly with entomologist Ed Turner, an (Tipulidae) is stunningly beautiful. experiment was designed for the remaining gardens that I hadn?t I became obsessed and spent hours sown and planted. I did identifying what I?d collected, but I invertebrate sampling with was still learning and needed to different methods before accelerate my taxonomic alterations and then sampled them competence if I was to keep up with again the following summer, to the amount of samples I had to get measure any changes in abundance through. I?ve found the best way to and diversity. Using pitfall traps and understand something is to explain vortex sampling at several points at it to others. So with more of Alex?s either ends of the gardens in the help and some research I learnt

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Learn how you can support invert ebrat e biodiversit y: RSPB wildlife gardening: www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife Kew Gardens?Grow Wild project: www.growwilduk.com/community-projects/resident-biodiversity Become involved in Cambridge: http://www.transitioncambridge.org/ References in t ext Gaston, K. Smith, R. Thompson, K. and Warren, M., 2005. Urban domestic gardens (II): experimental tests of methods for increasing biodiversity. Biodiversity and Conservation, Vol14, pp.395?413

everything I could about invertebrate identification and put on a workshop for ARU Wildlife Society. I had plenty for them to record and it was such a success that we put on another later in the year. When the time came to sample the gardens again in 2016, it was wet, no good for a vortex sampler, and worse I had thrown my back out and couldn?t even lift it.

What?s more I was behind with the identification of the previous year?s samples. Alex came to my rescue again and did all the heavy lifting, he was rapidly racking up the owed beers tally. Over the coming months I was a recluse, long hours at the microscope and longer hours trying to make sense of the statistics. It was the hardest thing I?d done in my academic career; I had identified ~30,000 invertebrates and had a crash course in bioinformatics.

The momentum of the Resident Biodiversity Project hadn?t slowed and a chance meeting had led to a radio interview on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. Outcomes of the project Success!

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The experiment showed an increase in abundance and biodiversity. My results showed no significant change for many of the taxonomic groups observed but for spider (Araneae), beetles (Coleoptera) and true bugs (Hempitera) there was a significant increase. Dr Alvin Helden (ARU) sampled some of the gardens as part of a wider study of urban grasslands and presented the results at the XXV International Congress of Entomology in

Helden, A.J. Morley, G.J. Davidson, G.L. and Turner, E.C., 2017.What can we do for urban insect biodiversity? Applying lessons from ecological research. Contributionsin Science. In Press

Orlando, Florida (Helden et al., 2017). After presenting the project to a group of international artists who were exploring sustainability, it inspired artist Julie Rossiter to make wooden plates for the gardens, depicting native wildlife.

The benefit for biodiversity is clear when it comes to mowing. Both my own and Dr Helden?s study show an increase in Araneae (spiders and the like) and Coleoptera (beetles) although Helden et.al. (2017) shows that this increase first occurs in grass that has been left to grow for approximately 6 weeks. If grass is left to grow for the full season the abundance of several other groups increases. It is not surprising that long grass provides habitat for more species. It is a simple management tool, increasing invertebrate biodiversity. Studies like these have significant value to urban planning.

this, domestic gardens account for a significant proportion of habitat across the UK and could be accounted for in habitat provision by urban planners if the data exists to show their ecological value (Gaston, et.al, 2005). This requires better record keeping for these areas and an effort on the parts of land owners to install and steward their wild spaces.

Universities that own or lease a number of domestic houses are in an advantageous position because they can make centralised decisions about the management of these spaces in a way that could have significant impact for ecosystem function in urban and suburban areas.

I am now planning to run the project again at other institutions but the true change in urban ecosystems will come when everyone recognises good Urban planning and biodiversit y gardening as being a little messier than we have become used to. If As cities expand and more people you would like to help your local live in areas that have little or no invertebrate communities increase natural habitat, small areas such as in abundance and biodiversity here these are critical for educating are a few resources that can give residents about the other creatures you some ideas. that share their space. Further to

Crocus plant ing in st udent gardens at ARU wit h t he W ildlife Societ y

Open access, free guidebooks for invasive species by CABI

by Winnie Dah, CABI Everybody likes well manicured lawns complete with the backdrop of colourful flowering plants. It is common to find people sharing potted plants as gifts, or have the gardener recommend that occasional ?in season?plant. But have you ever wondered what their identities are and where these plants come from? Apart from the aesthetics, do these plants have any negative impacts? The recently published e guide books to naturalised and invasive plants of: Laikipia-Kenya: ht t p:// www.cabi.org/cabebooks/ebook/ 20173158960 Sout heast Asia: ht t p:// www.cabi.org/cabebooks/ebook/ 20173158961 East ern Africa: ht t p:// www.cabi.org/cabebooks/ebook/ 20173158959 helps answer some of these questions. The guide books are aimed at enabling users identify some of the alien plant species that are invasive, potentially invasive, or naturalized and it goes an extra mile to provide information on impacts of these species and the possible options for managing and controlling such plants. A first of its kind to the Eastern Africa region and Southeast Asia, the guides are good for both quick identification of species through the photographs and also goes into more details on species description, associated negative impacts, distribution maps as well management options specific to each plant.

W hat is needed for sust ainable management of Invasive species? Information and awareness These easy to use guides are a valuable collection of essential information that will enable different stakeholders in these regions to fill in the gaps that exist especially with identification and management of invasive plants. Through the guides we can expect a renewed interest especially by university students interested in pursuing careers in invasive species, the curious layperson will have access to information, for policy makers , land owners and managers the guides will support for more informed decision making and to this end a coordinated effort to further gaps in invasive plant spread and management. The much anticipated guides have been well received and the reviews are encouraging. From a scientists point of view the guides couldn?t have come at a better time. These are times for researchers to take advantage of this useful resource to advance research in invasion biology and improve on delivery of quality research that will influence changes towards reversing the catastrophic impacts of plant invasions.The budding enthusiasts have an opportunity to learn about plants and discover names to common plants they have seen in the environment and identify plants to watch out for.

Visit : ht t p:// www.cabi.org/cabebooks/ebook/ 11

Harvey, Irma and t he act ualisat ion of climat e change

by Tyler Kulfan, MSc Global Change Ecology DJAnimalCracka

https://globalecoactivists.wordpress.com

To be a student of Global Change Ecology is to be perpetually considering and discussing the nature of climate change. It is an understood, well-established reality; but from the vantage point of scientific academia, it is an abstract one.

To watch as the subject matter of your abstract modeling becomes incarnate is a strange and terrifying experience. It is eerily fascinat ing?and it is a triumph of science?to see models and predictions unfold into the natural world exactly as expected. It is the confirmation that was never wanted. As an American, as one who has been surrounded by so many people for whom ignorance is worn as a badge of honor, the 22

sense of [unwanted] vindication is exhilarating, sad.

As I write this, Hurricane Irma is making landfall in Florida. A lot of people have been asking myself and others how climate change has affected first Hurricane Harvey and now Irma (with bad-Hombre Jose now lurking somewhere behind, like the climatic manifestation of post-DACA poetic justice).

Hurricane Irma is still unfolding.

What is already known is that established weather patterns are being broken and new ones are taking their place under climate change regimes. Extreme weather events have become four times more frequent than they were in 1970 (less than 50 years ago). IPCC emissions scenariosproject an

increase in the intensity of future hurricanes and cyclones, both in terms of peak wind speed and total rainfall. And,as the IPCC notes (and the brutally close timing of Harvey and Irma will surely demonstrate), the ?aftermath of one extreme event may precondition the physical impact of successor events.?

In neither case?Harvey or Irma?is it correct to say climate change is the direct ?cause?. Climate change does not spark weather events; it alters the long-standing climatic conditions which affect the formation, frequency, and characteristics (including intensity) of such events. Unrelated factors were at play in the destructive nature of Harvey?in particular, its

Hurricane Irma - Hurricane Irma has broken numerous significant records: - Strongest storm to exist in Atlantic outside basin of Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico - Lowest minimum pressure of any storm outside Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico - Longest maintenance (37+ hours) of 185+mph winds of any recorded storm - Highest recorded production of accumulated cyclone energy in a 24 hour period - Longest category 5 lifespan of a hurricane since 1932

Hurricane Harvey - Hurricane Harvey formed in the Gulf of Mexico. Water surface temperatures in the Gulf exceeded 73° for the entirety of the winter season (for the first time in history).

- The Northwest Gulf of Mexico features the highest rates of relative sea level rise in the United States (9-12 mm/year or 3-4 feet/century).

- Two category five hurricanes occurring in the same season has never occurred in the history of hurricane recording.

Wikimedia Commons

sluggish movement over the Houston region.

Or were they unrelated? The slow movement of Harvey may well have resulted from the weakened Jet Stream, which has been affected by escalating Arctic warming and ice sheet meltdown. There is plenty of room for speculation. What we can state, clearly and objectively, is that climate change had a direct, formative impact on these extreme weather events; and that similar events will likely become more frequent still. In short, this is what climate change looks like.

The events of the past week constitute a ?teachable moment?.

People are paying attention.

Attention doesn?t necessarily equate listening, but it occasionally

might. I don?t expect to change the minds of science-deniers. If you can reject the reality of climate change in the face of the amassed body of scientific data, you can reject it in the face of some crazy weather. My writing and conversations are aimed at moderates and un-activated progressives. We?ll need political action in order to implement mitigation action , and we?ll need them to swing power in a different direction than its current trajectory.

U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Zachary Wolf

Commit the above-listed facts to memory. Bring them up in your conversations. The natural world can no longer remain unaffected by the onset of climate change. Don?t allow human minds that unearned luxury.

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The import ance of Horseshoe Crab blood

by JamesD. Harris, BSc Zoology, ARU

Ancient Creat ures ?Horseshoe Crab?can be a misleading name because the alien-like creatures are marine arthropods and are actually more closely related to scorpions and spiders then they are to crabs.

There are currently 4 species remaining today ? Tachypleus tridentatus, T. gigasand Carcinoscorpiusrotundicauda which all inhabit the Southeast Asian coast and Limuluspolyphemuswhich can be found in the east coast of North America (Akbar John et al,.

2010). L. polyphemuscan be classed as a living fossil little evolutionary change has taken place over the last 150 ? 200 million years (Rudkin et al., 2008).

Anat omy Focusing on L. polyphemus, the greyish brown hard and smooth carapace protects the rounded horseshoe shaped body and is what creates the unique look of the arthropod. Attached to the body is a long caudal spine which has many

uses including the ability to flip itself when turned over on its back and propulsion or steering through water.

The head holds major organs including the brain and even the heart. To ?chew?its food, the animals must be moving as the spines located on the centre part of each leg are the ones that grind up the food and pass it into the mouth.

The hard exterior shell helps greatly against predators and there are also moveable spines on the abdomen to aid protection (Harrington, 2015).

Blue Blood One of the most unique and sought after features of the Horseshoe Crab is its pale blue coloured blood which is due to hemocyanin, a copper based respiratory protein. Another anomaly is the fact that it only has one type of blood cell which is called amoebocyt e.

Book gills Telson

12

Pixabay

By t he 1970?s, Horseshoe Crab blood had been modified int o Limulus ambocyt e lysat e (LAL) and in 1977 it was approved by t he FDA for t oxin det ect ion.

This is achieved by the cells causing a type of blood clot when bacteria enter the blood and the cells undergo exocytosis. The cells then release their contents out into the external environment which causes coagulation. This leads to the wound or injury to be sealed off and the bacteria contained and trapped (Okun, 2012). This has been a big step in preventing contaminated medical equipment from being used when treating patients.

Moralit y and Indust ry Limulusambocyte lysate is a big scientific achievement in lowering mortality rates around the globe, but what about the sacrifice made by L. polyphemus? Statistics show that in 1989, 130,000 crabs were caught and bled.

Mout h

Female pedipalps

The reason why the blood is so sought after is its ability to detect bacteria in pharmaceuticals and intravenous medications, a technique developed by Jack Levin and Frederik Bang in the mid 1960's.

By 2010, t his number had risen t o 500,000 per year.

Horseshoe Crabs can be bled without any injury to the creature and they must be returned back to the water within 72 hours in line with FDA regulations (Kurz and James-Pirri, 2002), however various studies have estimated that 15 to 30 percent of crabs do not survive the process. With the biomedical industry earning an estimated $220

Wikimedia Commons

million annually from bleeding the crabs (Okun, 2012). The big question to be asked is how ethical is this method knowing that up to a third of the crabs do not survive?

It seems a shame that these living fossils have survived millions of years of evolution to then be farmed and tossed back into the ocean.

References Akbar John, B., Jalal, K.C.A., Kamaruzzaman, Y.B and Zaleha, K. 2010.

Mechanism in the Clot Formation of Horseshoe Crab Blood during Bacterial Endotoxin Invasion. Journal of Applied Sciences, Vol 10(17), pp.1930 ? 1936 Harrington, Monica. 2015. Blue-bloods of the sea. Lab Animal, Vol 44(3), p.83 Kurz, W., James-Pirri, M.J. 2002. The Impact of Biomedical Bleeding on Horseshoe Crab, LimulusPolyphemus, Movement Patterns on Cape Cod,

Massachusetts. Marine and Freshwater Behaviour and Physiology, Vol 35(4), p.261 Okun, Sebastian B. 2012. Mating in the Moonlight: The Battle to Save the American Horseshoe Crab. Ocean and Coastal Law Journal, Vol 18(1), pp.199?201 Rudkin, David M., Young, Graham A. and Nowlan, Godfrey S. 2008. The Oldest Horseshoe Crab: A New Xiphosurid from Late Ordovician Konservat-Lagerstätten Deposits, Manitoba, Canada.

Palaeontology, Vol 51(1), pp.1?9

13

Celebrat ing animals in research

by Bushra Abu-Helil , BSc Animals are used in research to help us understand them, ourselves and the world we live in. However, simply understanding biology is no longer enough, we need to know how to control changes and discover why some changes occur.

In science animals are researched for a multitude of reasons in the wild and in captivity, including laboratory environments. There are a lot of understandably negative attitudes towards animals used in this form of research but also a lot of common misconcept ions.

This year alone, animals in research have been used to make phenomenal discoveries; our bodies are enormously complex and we are still learning about how the various systems, molecules and genes correspond collectively (Understanding Animal Research, 2017). One of the reasons that we are not yet ready to replace laboratory animals with alternatives, like 3D computational models, is because we still do not comprehend the full effects that can occur without them. This makes laboratory animals enormously valuable asset to scientists and should be treated and celebrated as such.

There are frequent studies and awards encouraging innovative and experimental ideas to further improve the welfare of laboratory animals and to reduce the numbers used. Organs-On-Chips is a new micro technology created by the Harvard Wyss Institute, which replicates human organs on a miniature scale (Bhatia and Ingber, 2014) . Although this will aim to reduce the number of animals used for basic biological and pharmaceutical research it will not allow an understanding of more complex system such as adaptive immunity.

As working with all animals in any environment, welfare is t he highest 14

priorit y and is never compromised, not even for science. Stress and anxiety can do some weird things to the body, such as increased cortisol levels, so it is not within the interest of the scientific community to have unhappy animals which could potentially lead to unreliable results. Having previously worked as a laborat ory Animal Technician, I have been proven that everyone in the industry has a genuine passion for the animals in their care. A majority of the employees have degrees and experience all relating to welfare and husbandry. Everyone loves animals, which means they are treated with the up most care and respect during their lifetime in research.

To demonstrate this, 113 UK organisation have signed a Concordat on Openness on Animal research (Understanding Animal Research, 2017b).

The attitudes of animal research in the UK are beginning to shift as part of the enterprise with help from BBC documentaries, virtual animal laboratory tours and town hall meetings with the opportunity to discuss, educate and promote understanding of using animals for science.

The Government Home Office collaborates with various organisation bodies and

professionals, including the RSPCA, to ensure all husbandry and procedural techniques are contemporary. Any living vertebrate over two thirds of the way through gestation development is considered a protected species, as well as any cephalopod from when they are hatched and any fish or amphibians capable of independent feeding (GOV.UK, 2017). Without the government issued licences and named officials, including a vet, nothing can be done to the animals. Legally this is all controlled by the 1986 Animals (Scient ific Procedures) Act , which was revised as part of the 1876 Cruelt y t o Animals Act .

When choosing to use an animal model for research, there must be no other alternative. The use, number and species must all be justified before being submitted for approval to the government, which is then audited each year alongside frequent unannounced visits by a Home Office Inspector.

In 2014, less t han 4 million animals were used in the UK; 60% of t he animals were mice, followed by 14% fish, 12% rats, 7% birds, 6% other (such as livestock, dogs and cats) and finally 0.8% specially protected species (Home Office, 2014).

Animals must be bred at recognised institutes, specifically

Timeline of scient ific discoveries found t hanks t o research done on animals (Foundat ion for Biomedical Research, 2001):

for research, therefore no strays or unwanted pets will ever be used.

They are purely for imperative essential research. Some studies are categorised to be researching As part of the initiative set out by ?basic biology?that will aim to the National Centre for the develop knowledge about Replacement Refinement & mechanisms of action, others into Reduction of Animals in Research diseases which affect everyone like (NC3Rs, www.nc3rs.org.uk), all cancer, and there is also research research proposals using animals into very rare genetic diseases with must have objectives in place to aim little known previous knowledge. to reduce the number of animals being used, replace animal models For those rare diseases, parents where possible with alternative who have children that have been methods and refine any husbandry diagnosed and are suffering or procedural techniques to deserve answers and for science to improve animals?welfare. As part of be doing something about it, but this, researchers will aim to re-use when there are so little information animals where possible under questions like ?how?and ?why?have highly controlled protocols. For to be outsourced to animal models. example, if using a genetically This year alone animals have helped modified male mouse and after to reach some extremely genotyping and testing whether it impressive bench marks. has no heterogeneity, then it can be - Restoration of memories in used as a companion, control or be mice with Alzheimer?s disease vasectomised to (Perusini et al., 2017) pseudo-impregnate females for IVF - Using tickling to improve treatment. welfare in laboratory rats (Hill, As part of EU legislat ions, no 2017) animals can be used to test alcohol, - Dolphins have inspired new tobacco or cosmetic products etc. method to increase blood

pressure in trauma victims (Cooperstone et al., 2017) - Tomato rich diets have decreased development of skin tumours in mice (Sampaziotis et al., 2017) As well as these recent discoveries, over the last few centuries animals in research have helped to eradicate small pox, increased life of dialysis patients, provide effective epilepsy medication and more! See t he t imeline above how animal research have helped to shape science and medicine for almost 300 years.

Although my personal experience with animals in research is limited to mice, I have had the opportunity to visit a larger multi-animal use facility, which at the time was housing cows, pigs, dogs, sheep, goats and a diversity of rodents. The livestock were 15

largely being used for pesticide safety testing, the pigs for insulin development and the dogs to trial new oxygen tank equipment. The institute even had a rehoming init iat ive with a list of individuals looking to adopt, where possible, after the projects had been completed.

Without a doubt, the staff that work with the animals are the largest asset to animals in research.

The five freedoms are heavily implemented with varying enrichment available and opportunities to all species for socialisation and expressing natural behaviours. Technicians should be enormously proud of t he work they do and continue to provide animals with the respect and care they deserve. Personal progression opportunities are also bountiful to animal technicians; achieving recognised levelled qualifications, attending conferences and symposiums as well as employee led committees to drive improvements.

Animals are an important part of science and although many EU countries are doing all they can to reduce and limit the use, there are still so many vital areas that rely on our non-human counterparts to investigate. The Netherlands are aiming to eliminate all use of animal safety testing by 2025 by transitioning to all non-animal research (NCad, 2016). The UK is the second largest contributor internationally to cancer researcher therefore it is unlikely this transition will be invigorated in the UK at this time.

Whilst we strive to ensure the animals are given the best possible life, it is important to continue to support the research and celebrate the animals being used as they continue to assist us in saving lives and finding cures for humans and other animals.

Read more Animal Test ing in t he UK: www.underst andinganimalresearch.org.uk

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Tot al procedures by est ablishment t ype in 2014 (Home Office).

Procedures undert aken for basic research, by sub-purpose in 2014 (Home Office).

References Cooperstone, J.L., Tober, K.L., Riedl, K.M., Teegarden, M.D., Cichon, M.J., Francis, D.M., Schwartz, S.J. and Oberyszyn, T.M., 2017.

Tomatoes protect against development of UV-induced keratinocyte carcinoma via metabolomic alterations. Scientific Reports, Vol 7 GOV.UK. 2017. Guidance: Animal testing and research. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/researchand-testing-using-animals Hill, D.J., 2017. How dolphins inspired a potentially life-saving method for treating trauma victims. [Blog] University of Buffalo, News Centre. Available at: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/ 2017/07/013.html Home Office 2014. Annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2014. Available at: http://www.understandinganimalresearch. org.uk/files/3314/4552/1574/2014_Home_ office_animals_stats.pdf Netherlands National Committee for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes (NCad). 2016. Transition to

non-animal research. Available at: https://www.ncadierproevenbeleid.nl/ documenten/rapport/2016/12/15/ncadopinion-transition-to-non-animal-research Perusini, J.N., Cajigas, S.A., Cohensedgh, O., Lim, S.C., Pavlova, I.P., Donaldson, Z.R. and Denny, C.A., 2017. Optogenetic stimulation of dentate gyrus engrams restores memory in Alzheimer's disease mice. Hippocampus Sampaziotis, F., Justin, A.W., Tysoe, O.C., Sawiak, S., Godfrey, E.M., Upponi, S.S., Gieseck 3rd, R.L., de Brito, M.C., Berntsen, N.L., Gรณmez-Vรกzquez, M.J. and Ortmann, D., 2017. Reconstruction of the mouse extrahepatic biliary tree using primary human extrahepatic cholangiocyte organoids. Nature medicine, Vol 23(8), pp.954-963 Understanding Animal Research. 2017.

Available at: http://www.understandinganimalresearch. org.uk Understanding Animal Research. 2017b.

Concordat on Openness on Animal Research. Available at: http://concordatopenness.org.uk

Assignment s t hat raise awareness: t he case of t he Barn Owl

by Alessandra Di-Graziano , BSc Animal Behaviour, ARU With its heart-shaped face, buff back and wings and pure white underparts, the Barn Owl (Tyto alba) (Scopoli, 1769) is a much beloved countryside bird in the UK.

main being a change in the agricultural practices: use of herbicides and rodenticides (Brakes & Smith, 2005), and intensification of farming (Charter, et al., 2012) caused a significant reduction of The Barn owl is a non-migratory suitable habitat, which undermines bird member of the family support to their prey items Tytonidae, order Strigiformes. The (Newton, 2004; Brakes & Smith, species is native to the UK and to 2005), while conversion of old most of Europe, Africa, America, barns (along with arboreal India and Australasia; although it diseases) and expansion of has adapted to live in a variety of agricultural fields reduce conditions, their preferred habitat availability of nesting sites is characterised by open (Ramsden, 1998).More recent countryside such as grassland factors influencing the change in pastures and agricultural fields population densities, as well as the (Borda-de-Ă gua et al., 2014). spatial distribution of the species, Because of such a wide distribution, are: the climatic change that has at a global level the Barn owl is taken place over the past decades classified as a species of least (Percival, 1990), as the species is concern (BirdLife International, particularly vulnerable to rigid 2004); however, over the last winters due to reduced prey decades, declines in populations of availability (Marti, 1994); the Barn Owls have been reported not incidence of road mortality that?s only in the UK, but also in Belgium, been increasing with urbanisation Poland, Spain, and in the USA. of the country (Borda-de-Ă gua et The decline of the species has been al., 2014). brought on by different factors, the

Universit y assignment As part of my BIOGIS project in my second year, I decided to assess whether the spatial distribution of T. alba populations in England had varied in the past 8 years through spatial and statistical analysis. The null hypothesis being that there was no difference in the spatial distribution of the Barn Owl (T. alba) between the time intervals 2008-2012 and 2012-2016.

The data utilised for the production of the map was obtained through the National Biodiversity Network?s (NBN) Gateway website (The National Biodiversity Network, 2012-2013). Data regarding the presence of T. alba was restricted to two four-years intervals between the year 2008 and 2016: such time intervals were chosen to ensure reliability of data, as earlier data was unlikely to be accurate enough due to the lack of appropriate technology. The data was added as a layer in the GIS program Arcmap (ESRI, 1999-2015).

The maps show how Barn Owl spatial distribution has changed since 2008 (in pink) to 2016 (in green), with fewer being sighted both in northern and southern areas in recent years. Photo by Aamir Aziz.

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Andrew Armstrong

Other data used in the report included the 10km grid for the UK and the GB National outlines, which were downloaded from the Ordinance Survey map collection of Digimap (Di Graziano, 2016); a selection by location was performed to restrict the grid cells to England only. In order to map the distribution of the Barn Owl, the resulting grid for England had to be joined with the cvs tables downloaded via the NBN Gateway with the option ?Keep only matching records?; the resulting grid cells, represent the distribution of T.alba. The procedure was repeated once for each time interval, and a single map has been produced for each time interval.

Wilcoxon signed-rank test was chosen as the most appropriate for statistical analysis, to be able to measure a difference in the spatial distribution, it was decided to test for difference in the latitude. The data for the latitude was obtained for both time intervals by adding the field and calculating the Y coordinates of centroid. The data was then imported in SPSS (IBM, 2010) where the statistical analysis was conducted.

Result s By counting the number of grid cells on the two maps, it was already noticeable that the number of grid cells showing presence of the species had decreased between the two time periods. To further confirm the change in spatial distribution, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test produced a highly significant P-value.

Both the cell count and the statistical analysis of difference in 18

the latitude confirmed that the spatial distribution of the Barn Owl has changed over the past 8 years.

From the maps, it can be seen that sightings of the species in the northernmost areas and some areas in the south have dramatically diminished. It is important to consider that the data utilised showed whether individuals of the species were present or not in the area rather than the number of individuals observed in a population, so the present st udy is not t o be t aken as a report about t he species decline.

Barn Owls are usually sedentary, with dispersal frequent in fledging rather than adults (Taylor, 1994).

Bond et al. (2004) noted that where nests and roosts are missing and the habitat quality and structure had changed, the owls abandoned the site.

schemes and changes in farm management practices in order to stop, and hopefully reverse, the decline of English farmland bird species (Vickery et. al, 2004). A study from Askew et al. (2007) showed that in later years, habitats provided by such schemes did support more individuals.

Despite its wide range and global conservation status, English populations of Barn owl have been declining over the past decades due to a variety of factors including int ensificat ion of farming and climat e change. This study showed, through spatial and statistical analysis, that the spatial distribution of T. alba in England has been modified over the past 8 years.

Future studies may show whether the agro-environment schemes promoted by DEFRA proved Moreover, where lowland grassland effective in halting the decline of had been drained to expand the species, and others might clarify agricultural fields, prey items such which of the aforementioned as the Field voles (Microtusagrestris) factors is responsible for such a have become scarcer, therefore change, possibly by showing the capable of supporting a smaller distribution as correlated to each number of Barn owls, both in terms factor and where different factors of nutrition and breeding success are accountable.

(Newton, 2004; Klok & de Roos, References (Complete list of references on GOES' 2007). But not all hope is lost . website)

Ramsden (1998) observed that after conversion of old barns (with consequential loss of nests) where suitable habitat is available, only one out of eight owls chose to move to a new site and, moreover, number of nesting pairs increased where nest boxes were erected.

Moreover, in the year 2000, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) launched a series of agri-environmental

Andries, A.M.; Gulink, H.; Herremans, M., 1994. Spatial modelling of the barn owl Tyto alba habitat using landscape characteristics derived from SPOT data.

Ecography. 17, pp. 278-287 Askew, N.P.; Searle, J.B.; Moore, N. P., 2007.

Agri-environment schemes and foraging of barn owls Tyto alba. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. 118, pp.

109-114 BirdLife International, 2004. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species [Online] Available at: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/ summary/22688504/0

Barn owl in t he care of The Rapt or Foundat ion. For more informat ion on t he Foundat ion and it s work please see t he June Issue or visit ht t p:// www.rapt orfoundat ion.org.uk.

Alessandra Di-Graziano

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Pigeons - t he misconcept ion

by Alex Merchan, BSc Animal Behaviour, ARU With a single city able to provide home for over 17,000 pigeons (Fuller et al., 2009), so it?s no surprise that they are a common sight for most of us living in the UK. However, there is more to this bird than many of us first assume.

With hundreds of different species, top speeds recorded at over 90 miles per hour and the ability to thrive alongside humans in urban environments, there is no doubt that pigeons are indeed successful animals that should have our respect. Despite this remarkable success, pigeons continue to receive constant criticism.

Dan ger ou s?

Whilst pigeons are a large contributor to ornithophobia and many people not favouring them around their cities, this is often caused by false facts and misconceptions. The misconception that they are diseased ridden ?rats with wings?that spread disease at an alarming rate is simply not true.

Whilst it is correct that pigeons can carry and do contribute to the transmission of diseases such as Chlamydiosis, Cryptococcus neoformansand histoplasmosis, the risk is very low. In 63 years, there has only been 176 recorded instances where a feral pigeon has transmitted a zoonotic disease.

Alex Merchan

That is, on average less than three transmissions of diseases from feral pigeons to humans per year between the dates of 1941 and 2003 (Haag-Wackernagel and Moch, 2004).

Ju st An n oyin g?

Regardless to common belief, pigeons do more than simply provide cardio for children. In fact, over the years pigeons have provided us with a lot, such as an important food source, messengers in war, sport, seed dispersal and more recently by helping to locate individuals lost at sea. In fact, there have been records showing that pigeons have been used for our benefit as early as 2500 B.C to aid humans find land whilst as sea.

Despite this long relationship humans have had with pigeons, they are still heavily stigmatised as being worthless.

The Illustrated London News, 2 October 1915

An d t h eir br ain ?

Due to structural differences between mammal and avian brains, many people believe the misconception that pigeons lack intelligence and basic cognitive abilities. However, pigeons possess complex cognition; such as spatial memory and problem solving (Nakajima and Sato, 1993) that can far exceed that of human capabilities. This remarkable spatial memory is due to specialisation of the hippocampus (Bingman et al., 2003) that has come about from a long evolutionary history of adaptive change and is often put to the test in homing pigeons. This intelligence is shown as a trained pigeon is capable of accurately navigating 600 miles over various terrains to return home. With that figure rising to over 5000 miles in certain individuals, there is no doubt t hat pigeons are in fact , int elligent animals.

References Bingman, V., Hough II, G., Kahn, M. and Siegel, J. 2003. The Homing Pigeon Hippocampus and Space: In Search of Adaptive Specialization.

Brain, Behavior and Evolution, Vol 62(2), pp.117-127 Fuller, R., Tratalos, J. and Gaston, K. 2009. How many birds are there in a city of half a million people?Diversity and Distributions, Vol 15(2), pp.328-337 Haag-Wackernagel, D. and Moch, H. 2004.

Health hazards posed by feral pigeons. Journal of Infection, Vol 48(4), pp.307-313

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Nakajima, S. and Sato, M. 1993. Removal of an obstacle: Problem-solving behavior in pigeons.

Journal of the Experimental Analysisof Behavior, Vol 59(1), pp.131-145

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21

The Plight of t he Manxies!

by Sophie Mott, BSc Zoology, ARU Sophie Mott

Manx shearwaters, Puffinus puffinus, or ?Manxies?are Britain?s longest living birds, the oldest one recorded was almost 51 years old (BTO, 2017). From the bird family Procellariidae, the small seabird spends the majority of its time out to sea and is excellently adapted to do so. The legs of the Manxies are positioned at the rear of a streamlined body for efficient swimming and elegant, long, wings allow them to ?shear?the surface of the water. However, these adaptations for life at sea leads to a less than graceful gait on land making them vulnerable during breeding.

They are Britain?s longest living birds, the oldest one recorded was almost 51 years old (BTO, 2017).

From the bird family Procellariidae, the small seabird spends the majority of its time out to sea and is excellently adapted to do so.

Shearwaters are ground nesting birds, digging burrows with their hooked bill and claws on offshore islands where it is safer from rats (Rattussp) and other ground predators.

24

Ellie Walliker

Usually when they reach their fifth year of age, they begin to breed and tend to come back to the same burrows and mates each year. To minimise the risk of predation from ever looming Greater black-backed gulls (Larusmarinus), and Great skuas (Catharacta skua), Manxies only fly to or from the burrows at night (Riou and Hamer, 2008).

Shearwaters have one brood most years consisting of only one large egg which can be more than 15% of the female body weight. Incubation of the egg by both parents is between 47-55 days, followed by another 62-76 days of parental care (Guilford et al., 2008). Finally, in late August / Early September Elegant Manx shearwater

the adult birds leave the nests to migrate the long 10,000km journey to South America to winter, followed, a week or two later, by their offspring.

Dist ribut ion and St at us All known colonies of Manx shearwaters in Britain are on the west coast, the largest of which are based on Skomer, Rum and the Isles of Scilly. Estimates suggest around 300,000 pairs of Manxies breed on these UK islands (BTO, 2017), this is around 80% of the European population! Due to their nocturnal and burrowing (fossorial) nature they are difficult to study but an overall decline in their numbers has earned them the "AMBER" conservation status in the UK. One of the reasons for their decline is thought to be the increase of ground predators.

Manxies have been exterminated from the Calf of Man and from Canna - a sister island to Rum - due to the introduction of rats and domestic cats, Feliscatus (JNCC, 2016). The colony on Rum is the largest known to coexist with rats (Thompson, 1987). The ability to coexist could be caused by the unusual nesting grounds of Rum where

the shearwaters nest on the islands mountainous slopes at altitudes of more than 450m, which is higher than the rats?normal habitat.

However milder winters in recent years may be increase the altitude range of the rats (JNCC, 2016).

Another factor thought to be contributing to their decline are problems fledging, such as those faced by the shearwaters of Island of Rum with the nearby mainland town of Mallaig.

Don?t go t owards t he light The isle of Rum has one of the largest breeding colonies of Manxies in the world, uniquely, the mountains of Rum, Askival and Hallival, are the remnants of an ancient volcano, long dormant and since subject to repeated periods of glaciation. This process led to the mountain tops consisting of healthy soil, perfect for burrowing shearwaters. However, these prime nesting sites face directly across the water to the mainland town of Mallaig (BBC, 2009; Isle of Rum Community Trust, 2017).

As an active fishing port, the area is surrounded with many bright lights which attract the young and inexperienced fledglings on their first night-time voyage. Flying in the direction of Mallaig, the young birds become extremely disorientated once over the town and can no longer find their way to sea (BBC, 2009; Storey and Grimmer, 1986). Flying around for what can be many hours, the fledgings get tired and confused and crash land into the town. Their short legs at the backs of their body make for slow and clumsy movement and their long wings in a confined area make for an impossible take off, leaving them helplessly vulnerable to gulls, and ground predators such as domestic cats, dogs, and foxes (Scottish Natural Heritage, 2012).

Mallaig Rescue This September I had the incredible opportunity to work with Martin Carty and his team of volunteers in Mallaig, rescuing and releasing lost

Shearwaters and returning them to their 6,000 mile journey South.

For the entire month of September, Martin and team scour the harbour and streets of Mallaig every night until the early hours of the morning rescuing Manxies from the ground.

Though finding them is not as easy as it sounds ? even though they are confused and exhausted the majority of the birds have the sense to hide from predators, which means they are well hidden from us! Mostly dark grey plumage is indistinguishable from surroundings at night and we often found ourselves clambering up and down rock faces, under vans and fishing tankers, on top of crates and boats and all manner of places to get to the little birds.

Luckily, over the past 10 years Martin has learned the most frequently crashed into areas mainly around the large industrial lights at the fishing port, so we were able to narrow our field of search. Once rescued, the birds were transferred into cardboard boxes lined with newspaper and kept in a storage container overnight to rest and recover.

continue to protect them. There are projects running in universities across the country including our own Anglia Ruskin University into different aspects of the life of a shearwater, such as the effects of light pollution, like that in Mallaig.

If you live in a west coast town find out if there are any volunteering projects near you, or if you are interested in joining Martin and his team please e-mail me at sophie_mott@hotmail.co.uk for further information.

References BBC. 2009. Autumn Watch.2009. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ p00569yg%20 British Trust for Ornithology, BTO. 2017.

Manx Shearwater. Available at: https://www.bto.org/about-birds/speciesfocus/manx-shearwater

Then at 9am with Martin, we retrieved them all and took them back to his office in his home. We checked them over for injuries, weighed them, ringed them and took a feather sample as part of a larger DNA research project. Once all the birds were ready for release we took one of the frequent ferries to the Isle of Sky and released them from the ferry mid-way.

Guilford, T., Meade, J., Freeman, R., Biro, D., Evans, T., Bonadonna, F., Boyle, D., Roberts, S. and Perrins, C.M., 2008. GPS tracking of the foraging movements of Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus breeding on Skomer Island, Wales. Ibis, Vol 150(3), pp.462-473

Releasing them from the ferry rather than from land creates less risk of predation from gulls and means there is a sufficient amount of wind to aid them in flight as they re-orientate themselves. The UK islands are crucial to the survival of Manx shearwaters. We harbour more than 90% of the global population for breeding and summer residence, so it?s vital we

Riou, S. and Hamer, K.C., 2008. Predation risk and reproductive effort: impacts of moonlight on food provisioning and chick growth in Manx shearwaters. Animal Behaviour, Vol 76(5), pp.1743-1748

Isle of Rum Community Trust, IRCT. 2017.

Geology. Available at: http://www.isleofrum.com/heritagegeology.php Joint Nature Conservation Committee, JNCC. 2016. Manx Shearwater Puffinus puffinus. Available at: http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-2869

Scottish Natural Heritage. 2012. Birds on the wing are lent a helping hand or two.

Available at: http://www.snh.gov.uk/newsand-events/press-releases/press-releasedetails/index.jsp?id=773 Storey, A.E. and Grimmer, B.L., 1986. Effect of illumination on the nocturnal activities of Manx Shearwaters: colony avoidance or inconspicuous behaviour? Bird Behavior, Vol 6(2), pp.85-89

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Loggerhead Conservat ion in Kefalonia, Greece

by Zinnia Thorpe, BSc Marine Biology with Biodiversity and Conservation, ARU All seven species of sea turtle species are considered vulnerable or endangered (IUCN, 2017). There are many threats to sea turtle populations, many caused by human activity, both directly and indirectly.

Within the Mediterranean Sea, three species are present.

Leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) occasionally make an appearance, however green (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) turtles are the most prominent species. Both predominant species forage in Greek waters, yet loggerheads are the only species that nest on Greek beaches (Wildlife Sense, 2017).

Their genetic isolation, caused by genetic divergence from the Atlantic populations, means their population numbers cannot be sustained by immigrating individuals form the Atlantic (Broderick et al., 2002). This highlights the importance of regional conservation efforts.

W ildlife Sense is a research and conservation project in aid of 26

loggerhead turtles. Based on the island of Kefalonia (Greece), a variety of turtle activities are monitored throughout the year.

Volunt eering I spent 2 weeks this summer with Wildlife Sense on the sea turtle conservation project. I was trained in how to conduct beach surveys and how to monitor loggerhead behaviour in the harbour. All the volunteer researchers had lectures about loggerhead turtles and conservation of sea turtles.

Beaches were surveyed every morning during the nesting period to locate the nests and relocate them of necessary. To ensure we were the first on the beach so spot turtle tracks and nests, we were up at 5am and cycled to the study beaches.

We assessed why a female may have emerged, attempted a nest, abandoned her attempt and returned to the sea. This creates a det ailed dat abase to detect what features of a beach prevents a female from nesting. Loggerhead behaviour is also studied at the

Sophie Mott

harbour by the volunteer researchers.

This data has not been collected on Kefalonia before, so far the data indicates that the turtles are more aggressive in the harbour than elsewhere, I often saw turtles chasing and biting each other.

One of my favourite things at the harbour was t o t alk t o t ourist s and educate them about the turtles.

Tourists would be much less likely to feed the turtles after understanding that the interactions with fishermen and tourists causes the turtles to act aggressively with each other. It is suggested that this is because of the competition for fish fed to them by fishermen. Loggerheads diet does not include fish usually, they are omnivorous and prefer to eat benthic invertebrates (Wildlife Sense, 2017).

You can read many studies done at this location about sea turtle foraging and diving behaviour (Godley, 2001), using satellite tracking (Hays, 1991) and collecting more and more data on hatching

Researchers at Wildlife Sense, walk along the beaches at night and assess the how intense the light from hotels, houses, beach bars, restaurants and other buildings along the beach are and how this will affect hatchlings and nesting turtles. If a nest is in a high light polluted area the hatchlings require special attention once they hatch.

behaviour and success (Houghton, 2002). All this research is crucial in order to understand how conservation effort can save these turtles.

Threat s t o sea t urt les

Severe exploitation of the marine turtle stocks occurred until the mid-1960s. Some local traditions in the eastern Fencing off a nest for prot ect ion Mediterranean involved Zinnia Thrope Researchers sleep on the the consumption of turtle beach and wait for the eggs meat. In many countries this is now Nests may also be relocated if it is to hatch, once the hatchlings unsuitably laid on the beach; too illegal and fish markets are emerge they are contained within a close to the high water level, a prohibited to sell turtle meat. box. They are transported by the Despite the legalisation against it is tourist spot or even under a researchers to part of the beach estimated that thousands of turtles sunbed! Once a nest is located, it is with very low light pollution, the fenced off to reduce accidental are killed for consumption and hatchlings are placed in a pre-dug damage. trade of turtle carapace in Egypt channel and they make their way to every year (Margaritoulis, 2003.).

Light pollut ion is also monitored by the sea. As with many marine At Wildlife Sense, the average clutch number is 90. Females might mate up to 5 males so the eggs can contain different paternities. From these eggs only 80% may hatch, and 1 out of 1,000 hatchling will reach mating maturity (15-25 years old).

With these low odds, it is important to ensure as many hatchlings as possible hatch from each clutch and that a nest inventory is conducted after hatching to identify reason for unhatched eggs.

researchers at Wildlife Sense, as light pollution effects the orientation of hatchlings when they emerge - it is important that there is low light pollution so hatchlings reach the sea. When the hatchlings emerge, they orientate themselves and follow the light of the moon on the sea, this is how they know where to go. If the hatchlings mistake man-made lights are the moon, then they will travel the opposite direction to the sea and they will unlikely survive.

organisms, plastic pollution is a threat to turtle survival, especially hatchlings.

Ghost fishing is a large problem for the turtles off the coast of Kefalonia. The turtles get their flippers caught in the nets which have been abandoned on the seabed, they become entangled while they are feeding on bivalves and seagrass. Although loggerheads can hold their breath for around 4 hours, if they are stressed they will

Art emis, a female loggerhead, being t agged wit h a GPS t racker by researchers from W ildlife Sense Sophie Mott

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quickly use up the oxygen stored in its body, and they will drown.

Wildlife Sense organises beach cleaning and snorkel expeditions to remove plastic and abandoned fishing gear from the nesting beaches. It is illegal for fisherman to fish within 100m of the coast in Kefalonia. If fisherman are seen fishing they are reported to the police. Turtles that are seen at the harbour are also monitored to ensure they do not ingest plastic or fishing materials. More serious issues are resolved at the Wildlife Sense base or at an animal rescue centre in Athens.

From my experience at Wildlife Sense, I can appreciate how difficult it is to pro-actively conserve a species. One of the hardest parts of the conservation project is the relationship with the fishermen.

Many fishermen see the sea turtles in a different light than conservationists, as a threat to their fish stocks. Turtles are blamed for their poor catches and damage to their nets. When we, volunteer researchers, used to tell the tourists not to feed the turtles many would ask ?Why can?t I feed them? the fishermen are?. Whether the fishermen choose not to believe or do not care to understand that feeding the sea turtles fish is bad for them, they still do it and this negatively effects conservation efforts. The turtles eat the fish given to them, even though they shouldn?t. It isis like us being offered free cake everyday- it?s bad for you, but it?s also FREE CAKE! There is also the argument that the fishermen may not be ?feeding the turtles?but rather sorting their nets and throwing overboard the fish that they cannot sell, they cannot control the turtles from not eating the overthrown fish.

It is clear that this fragile relationship must be taken into consideration when carrying out conservation efforts for the loggerhead turtle population in Kefalonia.

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Watch this video, from the Wildlife Sense Facebook page,of a turtle called Syna who swallowed a hook and line. She was seen digesting quickly, so she was taken out of the water and one of the head researchers removed the line. Syna was monitored and released back into the harbour over the next few days.

Sophie Mott

Myself and ot her volunt eer researchers relocat ing a nest

References Broderick, A.C., Glen, F., Godley, B.J. and Hays, G.C., 2002. Estimating the number of green and loggerhead turtles nesting annually in the Mediterranean. Oryx, Vol 36(3), pp.227-235 Godley, B.J., Broderick, A.C., Downie, J.R., Glen, F., Houghton, J.D., Kirkwood, I., Reece, S. and Hays, G.C., 2001. Thermal conditions in nests of loggerhead turtles: further evidence suggesting female skewed sex ratios of hatchling production in the Mediterranean. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, Vol 263(1), pp.45-63

Metcalfe, J.D. and Hays, G.C., 2002. Diving behaviour during the internesting interval for loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta nesting in Cyprus. Marine Ecology Progress Series, Vol 227, pp.63-70 IUCN 2017. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2017-2.

Available at: http://www.iucnredlist.org Margaritoulis, D., Argano, R., Baran, I., Bentivegna, F., Bradai, M.N., CamiĂąas, J.A., Casale, P., De Metrio, G., Demetropoulos, A., Gerosa, G. and Godley, B.J., 2003.

Loggerhead turtles in the Mediterranean: present knowledge and conservation perspectives. Loggerhead Sea Turtles (editors: AB Bolten and BE Witherington).

Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, USA, pp.175-198

Hays, G.C., Webb, P.I., Hayes, J.P., Priede, I.G. and French, J., 1991. Satellite tracking of a loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) in the Mediterranean. Journal of Marine Biological Association UK, Vol 71, pp.743-746 Wildlife Sense. 2017. Available at: https://wildlifesense.com/en/kefalonia Houghton, J.D., Broderick, A.C., Godley, B.J.,

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