'Big Nature Day' or a big nature summer?

Interested in Nature? I imagine you may be if you have found this blog. If you can make it to the Natural History Museum next weekend (27th May 2012), there is an environmental treat in store for you. They are running a BIG NATURE day. There is so much to explore with British wildlife and this event allows you to meet nature groups, get involved in surveying and listen to fascinating talks throughout the day. If you can’t make it on the 27th then there are a number of other events running throughout the summer such as the Big Seaweed Search, Bioblitz and BugCounts which can be found on the Natural History Museum and OPAL websites. No, I haven’t been paid by these organisations to promote the events, they just look fascinating! Once I have got the first draft of my thesis to my supervisor (almost there!) I will surely be getting out and enjoying all that the British countryside has to offer!

Carbon cut conquest or climate COP-out?

Given the seemingly vast periods of time I’m spending writing up my thesis at present, I thought I would change topic somewhat and comment upon the up and coming UN climate change congress. In five days, twenty three hours and nine minutes the 17th annual meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP17) will convene in Durban, South Africa to assess the effectiveness of the climate change Convention.



With the general air of disappointment in the progress made in Copenhagen (2009) and Cancun (2010) the South African president, Jacob Zuma, states that "The low level of ambition in this regard is cause for concern," and that the delegates should come to Durban “expecting a credible, sustainable and implementable outcome."

There are five key achievements that are hoped to be met in this conference:

- One: that the progress should embrace multilateralism, environmental integrity, fairness and the honouring of all international commitments under UN climate change negotiations.
- Two: that the key outcome of the Cancun agreements—the establishment of a Green Climate Fund—were developed.
- Three: that a legal framework for a future climate change agreement is determined to find a resolution to the disagreement over the 2nd Commitment period under the Kyoto protocol.
- Four: That adaptation remains a fundamental focus for developing countries.
- Five: that the outcome in South Africa is adequate to maintain environmental integrity.

This event has of course stimulated interest in the steps South Africa is taking in mitigating climate change. Top of the list are the proposed commitment to create a “green” economy. Interesting, as here in the UK the current coalition have expressed the desire to becoming the “greenest government yet”. Here’s hoping Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change minister, will support the second commitment period from the Kyoto protocol and keep pressure cutting carbon emissions.

You can voice your support for this motion through the campaign website, 38 Degrees.

Academic Attention

Aware that I haven’t given much of an update on my actual PhD research recently I thought I’d drop a short note in today. I feel it necessary to emerge from my office on a regular basis to get some stimulation outside of my own research and as such I have attended a few environment-related events, two of which I discuss below:

Species Interactions Workshop, UCL

Jordi Bascompte, an expert on species networks was visiting London from Seville this week and I grabbed the opportunity to attend a workshop hosted by him. Five students each gave a presentation on their research followed by a question and discussion session. The consensus before the event seemed to be that fellow students were a little intimidated by the intense nature of the workshop, but after we finished the talks/discussion and had lunch, I personally, felt that the session was highly useful.

I found it particularly beneficial to discuss quantification of interaction strengths. I have primarily been focussing on the frequency of interactions between trophic (feeding) levels i.e. how many leaves a single caterpillar attacks etc. Advanced techniques however can calculate the ‘strength’ of interactions by accounting for the diet proportions and the amount of biomass consumed. It may be useful to consider this if I expand my research into monitoring whole community networks rather than just small food chain subsections as I am doing now.

Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change Seminar

As part of our fortnightly Grantham Institute student meetings we attend climate related seminars given by external speakers. This week, the talk was given by Dr Sergio Margulis, Lead Environmental Economist at the World Bank who was presenting the findings of a report detailing the 'Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change'. In order to quantify the exact costs of adaptation they looked at both the global scale and country scale (of 7 chosen nations). A fairly simple approach was then taken:

1. Input the climate shock (using climate projections using an A2 IPCC scenario)
2. Look at the physical response (consider economic social and environmental impacts)
3. Fight back (Identification of adaptation)
4. Calculate the cost of adaptation

The figures estimate that the overall cost of adaptation will be between US$70-100 billion a year between 2010 and 2050. He suggested that although this cost will increase over time (transport having a major influence over this), when accounting for the assumed increase in GDP (countries wealth) then the proportion of cost in relation to overall wealth will diminish. The report also suggests that in some countries the GDP will improve if adaptation measures are put in place.

Committee on Climate Change

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) panel of nine members was formed in 2008 with the aim of advising the UK Government on ‘setting and meeting carbon budgets and on preparing for the impacts of climate change’. I have a particular interest in their activities because firstly, my research into climatic constraints on biodiversity requires current knowledge of broad scale climate information and secondly, one of the committee members, Brain Hoskins is the director of my funding body, the Grantham Institute of Climate Change.

This week CCC launched a new energy review at my University to which I attended. The session was chaired by Lord Adair Turner who clearly set out the findings of the report. A clear statement was made, renewable energy resources such as wind, solar and geothermal heat as well as nuclear and CCS (carbon capture and storage) could contribute a significant portion of the UKs energy demands by the year 2030/2050. I would paraphrase the rest of the talk but he summarises rather succinctly:

"The focus now should be creating a stable investment climate for renewables, making longer-term commitments to support less mature technologies, and putting in place incentives to deliver significantly increased investment in renewable power and heat generation required over the next decade."

Most of the crowd at the Imperial-hosted event were politicians however scientists were also present. Forging a strong link between the two disciplines will enable pioneering research to be implemented into effective climate policies. More information on CC and their recent report can be found at the CCC website.

'Environmental Vandalism' Prevented

Whilst away on fieldwork, I was keeping an eye on the recent consultation on the future of England’s forest estate. Concern for future public access, sustainability of national resources, impact on biodiversity and the loss of English heritage fuelled public action and stimulated an extensive campaign to halt the sale of 258,000 hectares of public forest estate.



In this current challenging economic period the government understandably have to make cut backs and raise revenue, this is where the coalitions ‘Big Society’ approach comes in. As I understand it, this privatisation of the forest to commercial bodies and NGOs was an effort to bring environmental management into the Big Society domain.

This however sparked public outrage, with the term ‘environmental vandalism’ conjuring up visions of industrial take over, widespread deforestation, disregard for the wildlife residing within the forest, loss of a valuable commodity, destruction of ecosystem services (such as pollination etc) and decimation of carbon sinks to many a concerned citizen. Campaign bodies such as 38 Degrees mounted petitions and within a few weeks rallied half a million signatures stimulating many to write to their local MPs. Of course with my background working in forest ecosystems both in my PhD and through forest ranger roles I felt the need to express my thoughts on the matter. Upon writing to my local MP I was impressed with the speed at which they replied but highly disappointed that they were planning to vote for the sell off.

Assessments were carried out and it was found that the sell off was neither popular nor economically viable. When ecosystem services, recreation, biodiversity, landscape and carbon sequestration were calculated the entire forest estate in England was valued at a whopping £1,800 million per year.

Luckily other MPs felt differently and in February the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman announced a U turn on the Governments plans stating that:
"I have taken a decision to end the consultation on the future of the public forest estate and I take full responsibility for that," Spelman said. "I am doing so because it is quite clear from the early responses to the consultation that the public and many honourable members are not happy with the proposals we set out."


My MP also wrote to inform me of the Governments actions to:

- “Remove clauses from the Public Bodies Bill which would permit publicly owned forests to be transferred into different ownership.
- Close the consultation on the Future of the Public Forestry Estate.
- Set up a panel of independent experts to consider ho we can better protect our woodlands for the future as part of a broader forestry policy”

Good news eh?! So, this is now going ahead and on the 31st March the panel convened for the first meeting. The 12 members on the panel have experience in a variety of sectors from the RSPB to the ramblers association to the Confederation of Forest Industries (ConFor). First moves are apparently to liaise with grassroots campaigners and stakeholders to decide upon appropriate approaches. The role will ultimately be to advise upon the future direction of forestry and woodland policy and to advise on the role the Forestry Commission should play in implementing this. Comments are required on how to increase woodland cover, enhance public benefits, how to manage spending on forests and the role of Forest Enterprise for commercial resource gains. The panel are due to report to Ms Spelman in the Autumn. Watch this space….

Back to the field...

It has been a while since my last post, inexcusable really as there has been a whole wealth of issues going on in the environmental world. PhD work recently however has had to prevail, with my last bout of fieldwork taking precedence.

So yes, I was lucky enough to head back to New Zealand’s South Island to collect the last of my data from the field experiments I set up at the end of last year. Just a three week trip but enough time to allow me to visit all 15 sites (from Nelson down to Dunedin), record how many plants were dead, how many had frost damage and how much herbivory had been going on. Currently my host plant (Macropiper excelsum) has a natural distribution down to s southerly limit at Banks Peninsula. This experiment was designed to investigate whether this plant could exist south of its current distribution. If so, it may indicate that the environment is climatically suitable and there is the possibility that it is not found closer to the poles because its dispersal is being constrained by isolation (i.e. fragmentation) of its associated native forest habitat.


Photo provided by Ben Rodriguez

Having the help of my field assistant Ben was invaluable, he was an absolute star throughout the three weeks, not only assisting with the work in the field but also with all the post-field processing. All of the data was collected in over a whorl-wind tour of the sites and we managed to get a significant amount of the herbivory assessments done at Lincoln University (thank you to all of those that helped at this Uni during my time of need). Although, the statistical analysis still needs to be done, on first appearances we noticed a few trends. Surprisingly we found that the kawakawas planted in the novel locations were very healthy, far more so than in the other locations. Interesting. Obviously I do not want to jump to any interpretations without the statistical analysis but I am looking forward to seeing what kind of trends we get from these data.

So, back in the UK now and on to the analysis and write up, will keep the blog posted with any interesting findings and any relevant environmental issues going on in the news…

Pitching Biodiversity Against Climate Change, Really?

Continuing the events going on in the 2010 year of biodiversity, Biodiversity Loss vs. Climate Change is the title of the debate between a panel of experts convening in the Kew Gardens temperate house this week.



Personally, I find the very question of which is more important futile, as in many ways the two are inexorably linked. The three videos are most definitely worth a watch however, click on the photo to link you to the CNN page. The four speakers; Ahmed Djoghlaf, UN Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Paul Smith, Director of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank , Jon Williams, Head of Biodiversity for PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Phillipe Cousteau, Environmentalist from the renowned Cousteau family raise some important points about what biodiversity is, why it is important and how its loss will effect our economies, health care and perhaps even survival.

Here are some key points they raise:

-‘Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth at all levels—from genes to species to entire ecosystems—it’s essential for sustaining the systems that provide us with food to fuel and other vital services’ (Earths Frontiers)
- “Going to reach tipping point where irreversible damage will be done to biodiversity.” (Djoghlaf, A)
-“(Biodiversity Loss) is one of greatest threats going into the 21st Century” (Costeau. P)
- Pharmaceutical companies which are worth US$6-700 billion are 40-60% dependent on biodiversity for medicines that come from natural species
- Biodiversity services are worth 2-4.5 trillion/per year, which makes it a bigger and more immediate cost than climate change.

CNN have produced a whole range of reports on Earths Frontiers from renewable energies to pinpointing the worlds biodiversity hotspots to bar-coding marine life. There’s even a facebook page if you want to keep up to date with their shows or comment on any of their documentaries.

The Natural History Museum, London

Soon I will be garden-less and therefore unable to rear caterpillars myself. To make up for this I am considering volunteering for a few hours a week at the Butterfly House at the Natural History Museum in London's South Kensington.



They also have many other interesting exhibits on, the following caught my eye:

- Interactive Climate Change Wall

- The Darwin Centre

Check them out if you're in the area.

My passion (outside work)

Im not sure if I mentioned this but I am rather nutty about Lepidoptera. My withdrawal symptoms from rearing moths in New Zealand has left me with a desire to aquire some seasonal fluttery pets back in the UK. I now have some bedroom companions consisting of multiple Peacock butterfly pupae and the odd Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar. After five days in my company (probably about 10 days altogether) they are emerging (as I write). Here are some pictures:







If you are keen on rearing butterflies/moths/stick insects yourself you can obtain them (amongst other sites) from:

Kew's contribution to the Year of Biodiversity

One of my favourite haunts whilst in London is the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Steeped in history, Kew is a botanists utopia. They too are running event for the 'Year of Biodiversity' which I may try and make tomorrow. NB Below is a picture which is really unrelated to this post, but it was taken at Kew, its the Titan Arum. This largest single flower in the world wreaks of rotting flesh to attract pollinators, gross yet pretty impressive.



They even have a butterfly and bug exhibit on in the Princess of Wales glasshouse, always a spectacle!

Did you know that were mid way through the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity?

A recent newsletter from the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust (one of my field sites in the Waikato) brought to my attention one of the positive cases of conservation being undertaken globally. More information about worldwide events can be found at:

Summer time again (5th in a row)

With the 2009/2010 field season wrapped up in New Zealand I'm now back in the UK to move on to the next stage of my project, data analysis. This being a more desk-based approach to research, I will start to investigate what trends (if any) are occuring in these data. More on this in a few months..

Returning to London brings with it the opportunity to become a working member of my supervisors research group at Silwood Park, attend a broad range of seminars at Imperial and will stimulate me to get up to speed with British research into climate change. My first brief forray of the news pages yielded information on climate policy. The new UK governmnent pledges to become the "greenest ever", and the recent greenhouse gas emission stats certainly support this, being down 8.6% this year. Whether this is largely down to 'the recession' is still debateable but it certainly is encouraging to see a move in the right direction in the 'International Year of Biodiversity'.

Fieldwork finale

Now 14/15ths of the way through the fieldwork, I am in Nelson to complete the data collection. As usual for Nelson, we arrive to a barrage of rain but unperturbed, we head off into the bush to collect the leaves tagged earlier in the season. It is important at this stage to also ensure I have all of the basic information about each field site, i.e. predominant plant type, canopy height and bearings of transects.

Whilst up in the region I will be checking- up on the plants that I brought up earlier in the year. Concerned by the potential for plants to dry out in their pots I will be digging them into the ground to reduce the possibility of them dying due to water deficit rather than frost sensitivity.



The last research trip to Nelson involved a spontaneous falcon attack so we’re a little nervous about returning to this particular forest reserve, however my caterpillar collecting sheet acts as a rather handy shield against the territorial bird of prey.

Now, off to brave the wet and dangerous New Zealand bush!

Planting for frost tolerance (& carbon offsetting)

I've finished planting out 150 plants over the South Island, feeling good about setting up the new experiment but also starting to make up for some of my large(ish) carbon footprint from this project. It will be interesting to see if the kawakawas planted South of their natural boundary will survive over the winter period.

Moving on now to leaf collections, embarking on the third North Island trip next weekend so I will endeavor to keep you more updated and hopefully more entertained then this relatively mundane post (sorry guys, long day).

Very little is known about the behaviour of the caterpillar I am studying so I have begun filming these moths whilst they move around the kawakawa leaves. I thought I’d put a clip up to demonstrate some of its characteristic features.



You can see how similar in colour the caterpillar’s body is to the kawakawa leaves, no wonder I had a hard time finding them. The moth belongs to the family Geometridae, which means that it is grouped together with other species of moths (infact 12,000 of them) that all loop their bodies when moving forward. They move in this unusual way because they are missing a number of legs (well actually pro-legs) that most other caterpillars have in the central portion of their abdomen. You can just about see the silken thread attacked to the larvaes silk gland that they use to lodge themselves onto leaves in the event they drop off the leaf (either purposefully to avoid predators or if their knocked off-i.e. my me!)


Apparently there was originally difficulty classifying these moths into one species as the variety of colours and patterns on the adult moth’s wings are so varied. The taxonomist (scientist who classifies different organisms into groups) Walker, in 1860 originally gave this kawakawa looper moth four names (one of which being Selidosema panagrata) but when another scientist, Fletcher revised the genus, the caterpillar was given the Latin name Cleora scriptaria.

Anyhow, you’ll find the moth (if your lucky enough as they’re rather cryptic) throughout the North, South Islands of New Zealand and even Stewart Island most commonly feeding on the kawakawa plant. They have two generations a year, laying a batch of eggs on the host plant, developing through the first to the fifth instar as larvae, pupating and then emerging into the winged imago (adult moth). Keep and eye out for any of these stages when you’re next in the bush…

Peculiar Parasitoids

Fascinating yet rather repulsive are the parasitoids I am studying. Yesterday, whilst picking my way through rotten kawakawa leaves and caterpillar frass (poo) I came across this one sick looking caterpillar. It was floundering around, still alive at the bottom of the pot next to a wasp cocoon. This indicated to me that this caterpillar had previously been injected with wasp eggs, the eggs had hatched out inside the caterpillars body, where the wasp larvae proceeded to eat the caterpillars internal organs and then burst out of it's side to go into pupation. Shockingly this half eaten caterpillar had enough of its vital organs remaining to enable it to carry on living. A behaviour that's rather typical amongst parasitoid species. Amazing.



Anyhow, I thought I'd put up a shot to show you the evidence, the black hole near the rear is where the parasitoid emerged and the wiry ovoid is the wasp pupae.

Completing Caterpillar Collections

All caterpillars are now obtained, photographed and safely stored away in controlled temperature rooms in individual containers. They are photographed, as below to enable me to establish at which stage of development (instar) the caterpillars were at when collected. As caterpillars grow and shed their skin, their heads grow and by measuring the widths of their heads, I can tell whether they are first (0.3mm), second (0.6mm), third (0.9mm), 4th (1.25mm) or fifth instar (1.5mm).



The forest remnant that I was working on yesterday was undulating and rather unstable underfoot. We managed to do well getting the samples down from a steep slope, over a river bed, through brambles but as we scrambled up the last slippy valley side I lost my footing and thumped to the ground landing on a number of the Petri-dishes containing the caterpillars. Not ideal. Luckily no caterpillars were harmed although they did proceeded to loop out from their labelled containers, march out of my collecting belt and get completely mixed up whilst crawling round my top. We managed to catch some of them yet unfortunately I could not tell which caterpillars came from which plants. Still, I should be able to analyse parasitism rates for the site still. Not all bad news.

Anyway, to celebrate finishing the second stage of my fieldwork we decided to go and see some of the other wildlife in the area, the enigmatic Hectors dolphins. Apparently they are the world’s smallest, rarest marine dolphins and in going swimming with them I got to fulfil a childhood dream and contribute funds towards ensuring their survival.

Long Days of Summer

Long day today, 5am start at Uni preparing the glasshouse for a new experiment. Last Autumn I collected kawakawa fruit from the Banks Peninsula, germinated the seedlings and now these young plants have transformed into one meter tall semi-mature trees. Result.





Now, I am taking these plants as well as some others donated from a nursery in Auckland and a Master’s project in Nelson, and packing them away in insect-proof mesh (a.k.a. curtain off-cuts!)



Now that the plants are all self- enclosed it is time to add a single caterpillar. These are moth larvae that I have collected from my field sites whilst surveying and in giving them their own plant I should be able to analyse how much they eat in their lifetime. I plan to place a number of caterpillars collected from Auckland on plants grown from Nelson and Banks Peninsula to see if herbivory rates change (and vice versa). This may indicate how species interactions may differ as insects move into new habitats. Anyhow, time for me to stop for the day, I have to have some energy to collect the last group of caterpillars in Akaroa tomorrow.

I'm back (for a while).

Phew, so sorry for the lack of updates but I’ve been tied up with an intensive period of fieldwork. Now I’m back in Christchurch after travelling almost 7000km in and around the North Island and I’m being kept busy feeding the caterpillars I’ve collected, all 1055 of them!
So the last couple of weeks have been packed full of bush bashing, insect showers, land owner liaisons, photography, camping adventures and plenty of travelling.

Although undertaking your own research can be rather stressful at times it is also a lot of fun and rewarding when it is successful. Of course it never always does run exactly to plan; with swooping falcons bullying us out of the forest, rain drenching specimens and data-loggers going missing it’s never dull in the field… I’ll post a few more tit-bits in-between the feeds…

...in the mean time check out the pic of the cats in their pots.

Copenhagen Climate Change Talks

This week marks the start of the United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen. The UN officials are meeting to discuss the options for action on global warming in the coming decades. Following on from the original Rio and Kyoto summits it is hoped that this two week conference will pave the way for plans to be drawn on the most effective way for countries to come to an agreement on tacking rising carbon emissions.

Climate scientists warn that to avoid reaching the dangerous level of a two degree rise in temperature, global emissions of carbon must be cut 25-40% below 1990 levels. It is hotly debated who should make the biggest cuts. With the US, UK and Japan responsible for most of the emissions, should it be on them to make the biggest effort or should it be on those countries with the biggest carbon footprint per person i.e. Australia? Either way it is hoped that progress will be made in the areas of carbon trading, reductions in deforestation and novel sustainable technologies.

If you're interested in finding out more check out the official UN website: http://unfccc.int/2860.php or for an easier read the Guardians website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/copenhagen.