In the news

Linking nicely to 2 of the previous stories, The Times Higher last week reported that the decline in field biology skills in the UL has reach crisis point http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/tablet/A6881D80/2018731.shared . Take things into your own hands, by taking advantage of the extra opportunities that are made available to you as students (e.g. the BioBlitz), you […]

Lucy Innes says “I’ve just read an article called  ‘Scars reveal ageing whales’ secrets’ from BBC’s science and environment section; and thought you might like to include it in the next Issue of SEEN, as  I thought it had some interesting ideas of individual identification.” (thank you Lucy!) http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30993208 the original article is here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mms.12204/abstract […]

Felix has sent in 3 PhD opportunities (thank you Felix!) 1) Queen’s University Belfast – “we have a PhD opportunity for a project focusing on community assembly theories applied to soil animal assemblages, multispecies distribution models, and a trait-based analysis to shed light on the factors that contribute to species coexistence at multiple scales. The […]

The importance of bees Emma Joslin says “Regarding the National Pollinator Strategy here is a youtube video I found that explains very simply the importance of bees but is quite cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uVeyH7XQXg&feature=player_embedded” (thank you Emma!)   Illustration course Jake Snaddon sent in this link for a course called “Introduction to naturalistic and scientific illustration”. The […]

GIS course (sent in by Felix, thank you Felix, staff contributor of the week!) A 2-day GIS course is bring run in Gloucester on 3rd-4th February 2015. The cost is £200 for students. More information available here http://www.ert-conservation.co.uk/qgis_intro.php   Importance of egg shape to avian survival Sent in my Robin Harris, he says “I read […]

News from Singapore! 2013 Zoology graduate Connor Butler sent in lots of entomology links (thank you Connor!) I still really like reading SEEN so I thought I’d send you some entomology articles I’ve read recently. The first is a really interesting article from 2012 on ant mimicking Staphylinid beetles, known as myrmecophiles. Having evolved elaborate […]

Crocodile in Plymouth – (from Tom Ezard, recipient of the highly coveted title of staff contributor of the week, woop woop!) https://twitter.com/BBCEngland/status/522410706688569344   More on crocodiles, from our resident expert Rob Gandola. They work as a team to hunt prey http://wingedpost.com/2014/10/crocodiles-sophisticated-hunters-work-team-hunt-prey/   Flies are the forgotten pollinators http://urbanpollinators.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/flies-forgotten-pollinators.html   Sexual selection has had a positive […]

There have been lots of links sent in – thank you all (especially Emma and Rob)!   Emma Joslin gives us all the annual reminder that membership to the British Ecological Society is free for 12 months for all undergraduates, masters students and 1st year PhD students http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/membership/bes-student-membership-offers/.   Emma also noticed that that Royal […]

MRes student Dani Free was obviously thinking about the bioblitz when she found this guide to using citizen science for monitoring the environment on LinkedIn (thank you Dani!) http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/news_archive/choosing_and_using_citizen_science_guide_2014_23.html   PhD student James Hansford thought you might all be interested to know that ZSL are looking for volunteers for the Tsaobis Baboon Project. Positions are […]

The South Downs green fair is on this Sunday at the Sustainability Centre. Find out more here www.southdownsgreenfair.org   Staff contributor of the week this week is Gareth Dyke, who sent a link to a blog written by one of his PhD students about their recent expedition to Romania to find fossilised pterosaurs (thank you […]