Engaging students with the fundamentals of biodiversity

This term we have started refreshing and reformatting our first year undergraduate modules, partly in preparation for the move to our new Waterside Campus, but also because they were beginning to feel a bit tired and jaded.  We have begun with ENV1012  Biodiversity: an Introduction, a 20 CATS module which mainly services our BSc Environmental Science and BSc Biology programmes.
One of the changes has been to go from a “long-thin” delivery of 2 class hours per week over two terms, to a “short-fat” delivery of 4 hours per week in one term.  The advantages of this, we think, are two-fold: (1) it provides students with a richer, more immersive experience because they are not mind-flitting between different topics; (2) it frees up longer blocks of time for academic staff to focus on programme development, research activities, etc.

For now we have opted to deliver the 4 hours in a single session.  That’s quite a long time for the students (and staff) to be taught (teaching) but it’s punctuated by short breaks and includes a lot of practical work in the field, lab, and computer suite.

One of the aims of ENV1012  Biodiversity: an Introduction is to engage the students with the use of taxonomic names of species and higher groups, familiarise them with the principles of biological classification, why this is important (and why it underpins the rest of biology and much of the environmental sciences), and so forth.  Building confidence in how scientific names are used, and the diversity of species that all of us encounter on a day-to-day basis, are important aspects of this, and I developed a couple of new exercises that we are trialling this term which are focused on these areas.
The first one is called “The Taxonomy of Gastronomy” and was partly inspired by a conversation I had with Steve Heard when he posted about The Plant Gastrodiversity Game.  It works like this. I begin with an interactive lecture that sets out the basic ideas behind taxonomic classification and its importance.  After a short break the students then begin the hands-on part of the exercise.  Working in groups of three they use a work sheet that lists 10 culinary dishes, including:  fried cod, chips, and mushy peas; spotted dick; spaghetti bolognese; Thai green curry with tofu & okra; chocolate brownies, etc. (this can easily be varied and adapted according to needs).

The students’ first task is to find a recipe online for each dish.  For each biological ingredient in that dish, they list its common name and find its taxonomic family, genus, and species (italicising the latter two, as per taxonomic conventions).  I emphasise that it is important to be accurate with names as they will be doing something similar in a later assessed exercise.

This takes a couple of hours and then they feedback their results in a debriefing session, including finding out who had the longest list of species in a meal – the winner was 17 species in a moussaka recipe, with a Jamie Oliver fish and chips recipe coming a credible second with 12!  We also discuss particularly common taxa that turn up frequently, for example plant families such as Solanaceae – the relatedness of tomatoes, chillies, peppers, potatoes, and aubergine, the students found very intriguing.
By the end of this exercise the students will have gained familiarity with researching, understanding, handling, and writing scientific names of species and higher taxonomic groups.  In addition they will have a better understanding of the taxonomic diversity of organisms that we consume, and their relatedness.  It may also have encouraged them to try out some new recipes!

If anyone wishes to comment or add suggestions for improvements, please do.  If you’d like to try this yourself with your own students feel free to adapt it to your own needs, though an acknowledgement somewhere would be polite.

Prof Jeff Ollerton

This article was first published on Jeff's blog here

Department staff assess biodiversity impact of new Waterside Campus

The University of Northampton is building a new campus, in the heart of Northampton. The Waterside Campus will open in September 2018.

Researchers within the Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences have been monitoring the effects of the building work on biodiversity. You can read more about this research here.

Student receives letter from Sir David Attenborough

There can’t be many people currently working or studying in ecology, conservation, or the environmental sciences who were not in some way inspired by the programmes presented by Sir David Attenborough during his long career.

One of our undergraduate students recently received a hand-written letter from Sir David.

Saadia's letter from Sir David Attenborough

Saadia Khan, a BSc (Hons) in Wildlife Conservation student, was part of the audience for a special recording of the BBC's Inspiring Attenborough at 90.  Saadia took the opportunity to pass on a letter to Sir David, explaining how he inspired her.  The full story can be read in full on the University of Northampton’s website.

What does Brexit mean for British biodiversity?

Prof Jeff Ollerton muses on what Brexit means for British biodiversity

 

Friday 24th June 2016.  What a surreal day.  I spent it trying to understand why a small majority of the voting public had committed us to leaving the European Union, an organisation that has had a demonstrably positive impact upon our lives, our society, our economy, and our environment.  That dream-like state was not helped by the fact that I’d stayed up most of the night with my youngest son James, watching the results roll in.


Saturday 25th June 2016.  Twenty four hours later, after a good night’s sleep, I feel less dislocated but no less confused and disappointed.  It is what it is, let’s get on with it.

It’s much too early to properly answer the question of what this all means for British biodiversity, of course.  But as I pointed out in my post about the environmental arguments for remaining in the EU, there’s a whole raft of policies, legislation, agreements and initiatives that the government and NGOs need to consider.  Just to give a couple of examples, what will happen to the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan, or the Special Protected Area status of places such as the Upper Nene Valley?

What I really hope is that we can continue as before, building on the current situation rather than tearing up the whole thing.  To some extent I’m optimistic that we can for the near future, because the government will have (as it sees it) bigger things to worry about.  But I do worry that eventually we will get left behind as EU environmental legislation evolves.  That’s something we have to be mindful of in the coming years.

The ecological internet is already starting to discuss these issues; here are links to a few pieces that I’ve seen:

• Adventuresinbeeland has discussed what leaving the EU means for British bees and beekeepers, pointing out that EU funding has enabled bee inspectors to carry out apiary inspections and work with beekeepers on issues such as bee pests and diseases.
  
•  The Wildlife Trusts are trying to look positively at the future, with Brian Eversham, Chief Executive for the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, summing it up very well:  “Many of those who disagreed over the Referendum agree strongly that wildlife, our countryside and the natural environment matter, now and for the future. We need their voices loud and clear in the coming months. As we are now responsible for our own, independent future, it is up to all of us to make sure that we keep the environment firmly on the national agenda.”
  
•  Mark Avery has also summed up the current situation very succinctly on his blog – one cartoon says an awful lot.
  
•  Finally, here’s Craig Bennett, CEO of Friends of the Earth, writing on how can we make Brexit work for the environment?

No doubt there will be more coming soon and I’ll try to provide updates on the blog.

In terms of my day job as an academic at the University of Northampton, things will also change across the whole British Higher Education sector, of course.  On one level that’s a different set of issues to what I’ve been discussing, but there are also links: a great deal of ecological research activity is being funded by the European Union and involves cross-border collaborations.  Scientists across Europe have to continue to make that work.

This article was first published on 25th June 2016, https://jeffollerton.wordpress.com/ 

What is 'biodiversity'?

Professor Jeff Ollerton explains what is meant by the term 'biodiversity...


Ever since I set up the Biodiversity Blog in 2012 I’ve had it in mind to write a post asking the question “Just what is “biodiversity”?”, but have never quite got round to it, there’s been too many other interesting and important things to write about on here!  This week over at the Dynamic Ecology blog Brian McGill has beaten me to it with a really interesting post entitled:  Biodiversity and pizza – an extended analogy leading to a call for a more multidimensional treatment of nature.
I’m not entirely sure that the pizza analogy works, it’s a little tortuous, but none the less the post is provocative and interesting, and has generated a lot of comments.  I strongly recommend it.
In the interests of recycling, and because the readership of my blog only overlaps partially with that of Dynamic Ecology, thought I’d restate a few things that I brought up in the comments to Brian’s post (but this certainly won’t substitute for going over and reading it yourself”.

One of the questions that Brian asks is:  “Is biodiversity a useful term or has it outlived its usefulness?”  It’ll come as no surprise to readers that I like the word “biodiversity”: I used it for the title of my blog and for my professorship, because it captures a lot about what I value in the natural world, and because it’s a term that I’ve (professionally speaking) grown up with. To my mind it is an umbrella term that can mean different things to different people; some see this as a disadvantage but I think that, as long as we qualify precisely what we are referring to, using “biodiversity” in a loose way is not a problem. Perhaps an appropriate analogy is with politics: if someone describes themselves as a “conservative” or a “socialist” or a “liberal”, those terms cover huge internal variation and political scope, but it’s not a problem because it broadly describes the beliefs of that individual.
As an instance of when “biodiversity” may not be a useful concept for nature conservation, Brian gives an example of salt marsh, often areas with rather low species diversity, as being of low priority for conservation because they are poor in “biodiversity”.  But this ignores the fact that all of the “official” definitions of biodiversity explicitly include diversity of habitats/communities/ecosystems/biomes in a defined geographical area.  For example the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity defines it as:

“the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.” [my emphasis]

Thus destroying an area of salt marsh may indeed result in few species being lost, but it would be a significant loss of biodiversity at that higher level of community/ecosystem, if a region has only salt marsh, woodland and grassland in it: in essence you’ve lost one third of your biodiversity because you’ve lost one third of your habitats.

Something that’s occurred to me over the last couple of days of reading comments and thinking about the questions that Brian posed is that “nature” and “biodiversity” are not actually synonymous at all. When people say they like “being in nature” or they “value contact with nature”, what they are usually saying is that they enjoy landscapes, seascapes, changes in the weather, being out of doors, etc., things which are not strictly part of what we understand as “biodiversity”.

Likewise, “protecting the environment” includes a whole set of non-biodiversity related questions and actions such as air and water quality, wastes management, sustainable use of resources, etc., much of which may not directly affect biodiversity at all.

“Biodiversity” has a specific meaning, as the definition above shows, even though that meaning can be broadly defined. Which sounds like a contradiction, but it’s not – and brought to mind the title of the Led Zeppelin fanzine: “Tight But Loose”*.  Biodiversity as a concept and as a field of research and action involves so many different types of stakeholder (ecologist, botanist, zoologist, artist, conservationist, activist) that (as I said) it provides a useful (loose) umbrella.  Problems only occur when people use different tight definitions and talk past one another.

The other aspect to Brian’s post is around the pros and cons of valuing ecosystem services, which is a much bigger argument in some ways, and I’m going to point readers to two blog posts, one recently from Steve Heard which I think is a very nice, concrete example that captures a lot of the uncertainties that Brian describes:
https://scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/invasions-beauty-and-ecosystem-services-a-conundrum/
The second is one of mine from last July related to the value of valuing nature, which was prompted by the Costanza et al. update paper:
https://jeffollerton.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/how-do-we-value-nature/
These are fascinating discussions that will run and run, I have no doubt.

*I’m found of bringing musical examples into these blog posts :-)


This blog post was first published here.

Professor of Biodiversity blogs about a spider named David Bowie

Jeff Ollerton, Professor of Biodiversity, writes a regular blog about his research.

Prof Jeff Ollerton

 
Recent posts have considered a new publication about pollination and biodiversity and Christmas. He also reflects on a spider named David Bowie...

Professor blogs about biodiversity

When lecturers aren't teaching, they spend time writing and researching.  Prof Jeff Ollerton writes a regular blog about biodiversity, in addition to academic books and papers.

Prof Jeff Ollerton

In July, for example, Jeff wrote a daily blog post throughout Pollinator Awareness Week, as well as reflecting on his work on the BBC television series 'Plant Odyssey'.

Bird ringing trip to Skokholm - Lynne Barnett

Lynne with a Manx Shearwater

At the beginning of May 2014, I was fortunate enough to be included as a trainee with a party of experienced bird ringers from the Northamptonshire Ringers Group on a ringing expedition to the Pembrokeshire island of Skokholm. Our quarry was in particular Manx shearwater but anything with wings was fair game (except, as it turned out, storm petrels and auks, whose habitat or breeding season were too fragile to disturb at the time we were there).

To read more about Lynne's time on Skokholm click here

Fire and water in Tenerife!

Students who attended the 13th annual Department field trip to Tenerife in early May were greeted with a stunning example of the power of nature to recover following devastating natural events.

When the previous cohort of students, led by Professor Jeff Ollerton, were on the island in 2013, the native pine forest on the mountain slopes south of Las Cañadas looked black and bare, having burned a few months previously in one of the frequent fires which naturally occur in this environment.

As you can see in these first two photographs from April 2013, trunks of the endemic Canary Island Pine Tree (Pinus canariensis) were blackened, most of the foliage had burned off, and the shrubs growing in this habitat were mostly destroyed.

Twelve months later, following one of the wettest winters that Tenerife has experienced, the field course was greeted with a sight of rejuvenation. The pine trees are re-sprouting and the landscape is full of colour as plants such as Erysimum scoparium, Echium wildpretii and Argyranthemum tenerifae flower in abundance. There are also more butterflies than have previously been seen in these habitats.

From fire and rain comes new life and new beginnings, a positive environmental stimulus for the endemic biodiversity of Tenerife. The fire has opened up the vegetation, allowing seeds to germinate, and the winter rain has stimulated growth and flowering in these summer-drought habitats. It provided the students with a great example of how the ecology of such dry, subtropical habitats is affected by both climate and fire.

Professor of Biodiversity visits Brazil for teaching, National Botanical Congress and research field work

Jeff Ollerton, Professor of Biodiversity within the Department, spent the last two weeks of November 2013 the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil undertaking field work on the ecology of plants and their pollinators.​

The field work is the final stage of Professor Ollerton's month long visit to Brazil, a trip which has seen him travel over 2,500km, speak at the National Botanical Congress, and present lectures at institutions throughout the country. Professor Ollerton has also taught a one-week long pollination biology course to a group of postgrads and professors at the University of Campinas, which included the students undertaking field work on their own campus.

In the field, Professor Ollerton collected data on the proportion of animal versus wind pollinated plants across different Brazilian plant communities.  His data collection will compare plants in dry tropical vegetation (in the Serra do Cipó National Park), to those growing in the mountain ranges of Serro do Mar in the South East of the country. The plant species are given scores based on the type of flowers, pollen release and flower visitors that they have. The research undertaken so far fits with predictions made in Professor Ollerton's 2011 study, published in the journal Oikos, suggesting that 90 per cent of plants within tropical communities are pollinated by animals, compared to 70-80 per cent on average in the temperate zone.

The trip is part of an ongoing collaboration with PhD student André Rodrigo Rech and his Brazilian supervisor Professor Marlies Sazima as part of the "Science Without Borders" scheme.  Staff and students were able keep up to date with Professor Ollerton's adventures as he blogged each week from Brazil, beginning here:  http://jeffollerton.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/brazil-diary-1/