Taxonomic student societies
There are several student societies, reflecting the interests of their members:
HerpSoc https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=uos%20herpsoc
Bug Soc @UoSBugSoc (Twitter)
Ornithology – usornithology@gmail.com
There is also the Southampton University Conservation Volunteers (who seem to have adopted my species of the week idea in their task email, imitation is the greatest form of flattery!) http://sucv.weebly.com/
1st published paper by NOCS PhD student, Jamie Hudson
Jamie (http://www.southampton.ac.uk/oes/postgraduate/research_students/jh25g11.page#research) asked me to share his new paper with you (his first publication, congratulations!), which was published online in Biology Letters last week. It is entitled “‘Anthropogenic transport of species across native ranges: unpredictable genetic and evolutionary consequences’ and studies the ascidian Ciona intestinalis within the English Channel (on both English and French coasts)” and can be found here: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/10/20160620
Southampton BioBlitz – Zebraversity Challenge
For me, BioBlitz interns Olly and Meg, and all of you who volunteered for the BioBlitz events, this summer has been zebra-tastic! Marwell Wildlife had a sculpture trail all over the city, to raise awareness of Grevy’s zebra conservation and also to raise money. The Southampton BioBlitz team were awarded funding from two pots of money at the university, in order to sponsor a zebra and run events. We chose a design covered in native British species and requested for her to be placed in a city centre park. We named her Zebraversity. We ran a series of events at our sponsored zebra sculpture http://blog.soton.ac.uk/bioblitz/events/, we also visited local schools and scouting groups, and ran two BioBlitzes, one on campus (on a very hot day) and one in East park in the city centre (on a very wet day). Most recently we have been fundraising in the hope of buying our sponsored zebra at the charity auctions (watch Meg and Olly’s promotional film here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCsE-64pdfg&feature=youtu.be .
The auction was last night and resulted in a story that must surely one day be made into an award-winning film. Our fundraising gave us a budget that was £1000 larger than we would have had without all our wonderful donators (thank you all), so we had some confidence but she is a very lovely zebra. The sculptures went for a variety of prices, ranging between £1000 and £4000. It was literally nail-biting stuff. We had no idea whether our budget would be large enough. Bidding began, us and one other. In the end, his budget was bigger and we were outbid L. The sale price was £2500. We felt quite sad but saw the bigger picture of the funds going towards zebra conservation (which MRes Wildlife Conservation students are involved in this research). On the way out we met the man who outbid us, Ray Hole. Tim Woodfine from Marwell was telling him about our summer of events. He apologised and asked us to keep the project going, saying we could borrow Zebraversity any time. This morning, we have found out that Ray is donating Zebraversity to us and wants to work with us on our endeavours! We couldn’t have asked for a better ending J!
We will be arranging an event for all our volunteers and donators, along with Ray. We will be in touch soon and very much hope that you will come along.
Posted By : Judith Lock