Today I started my PhD!

Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life – I officially started my PhD. As I sit here on this beautiful Friday, the 1st of February 2019, the reality is just starting to sink in.

I have dreamed of pursuing a PhD since I was a young teenager. The idea of studying insects and ecology at a higher level and getting paid for it seemed like a dream. But with this new opportunity comes a bit of nervousness. It’s been a few years since I’ve been a student, and I recently discovered that I am dyslexic. I’m curious how my dyslexia coping mechanisms will hold up during this rigorous and demanding journey.

Not only that, but I am also embarking on this adventure in a brand new place – New Zealand. This is my first time here, and I have moved here for the duration of my degree, which will last for ~ 3 years. The weather has been incredibly hot, but it’s also been absolutely lovely. I’m slowly getting to know the people here, learning the New Zealand culture, making new friends, and I am optimistic and excited about the journey ahead.

So, dung beetles, watch out. And to document this journey, here are a few photos from my time here so far.

Flying into Auckland International Airport from Brisbane!

How do we Archive Superorganisms in Natural History Collections?

Archiving Superorganisms Termite Collections: Past, Present and Future

Termites (Blattodea: Termitoidae) live in colonies, and have complex social systems comprising of kings, queens, nymphs, soldiers and workers. They build elaborate nests, which provide vital functions for the success of the colony, including reproduction, nourishment, protection and dispersal. It is for this reason that the termite colony has become analogous with the idea of it being a multicellular individual: a superorganism.

Ecologically, termites are the primary invertebrate decomposers of dead plant material in tropical and subtropical terrestrial ecosystems. Recent research in the Soil Biodiversity Group has shown that termites may become even more important in a drying world, as they mitigate the ecological impacts of drought in tropical rainforests. Therefore, it is crucial to document and maintain excellent collections of termites, both biotic and abiotic elements.

In this talk, I presented data on the NHM termite collection and its complexities. As soft bodied individuals, termites must be stored in temperature controlled spirit collections. Termite mounds are dried and kept in temperature controlled cabinets and the nest collections are really useful when talking about termites to the general public. It is vital to have both of these components in a collection, as termite taxonomy uses morphological features of the soldier termite for identification of species, as well as the mound structure and geographical location.

In this talk, I evaluated:
(I) Past Collections: How and where did it begin?
(II) Existing collections: What shape are they in now?
(III) Future collections: How to maintain specimens and provide alternatives for the coming generations?

You can download a .pdf of my talk here: Archiving Superorganisms Termite Collections: Past, Present and Future

termite-collections-in-the-anthropocene-conference Download

Ants Dominate Clean-up in Tropical Forest Systems

Our research was featured in the Ecology section of Nature Research Highlights on the 16 August 2017! It was a digestible (pardon the pun) summary of our ant resource removal paper.

Dreams do Come True: Tropical Ecology Research in Borneo!

When I was leaving Maliau Basin in 2015 after completing the data collection for my masters project, I did not think I would have the opportunity to return to Borneo any time soon… I was wrong!

Between September – December 2016 I went back to the beautiful pristine rainforests surrounding Maliau Basin in Borneo, this time, as an ecological field research assistant with the Natural History Museum, I worked with the Termite Ant Research Team which includes Paul Eggleton, Louise Ashton, in collaboration with the University of Liverpool’s Kate Parr, Hannah Griffiths and Alice Walker.

I spent half my time in the rainforest collecting data from fieldwork including:

Termite transects
Leaf litter transects/Winkler Bag sampling
Ant bait card monitoring
Predation study on fake grublets
Wood occupancy surveys
Hand collecting 2,000 individual ants for molecular gut content analysis
Ant resource removal experiment

The other half of my time was spent in the Laboratory in the Institute of Tropical Biology and Conservation (ITBC) at the University of Malaysia, Sabah (UMS) in Kota Kinabalu working in the Natural Products Chemistry laboratory where I extracted chemicals from soil and seedling samples. I also helped the UMS Friends of Borneensis Outreach Initiative to design a field course for Malaysian School Students in 2017.

Our resource removal experiment revealed that Ants are the major agents of resource removal from tropical rainforests and was published recently in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Drying and Weighing Soil Samples at UMS

Extracting chemicals from seedlings from all of the plots

Topographic representation of Maliau Basin and all of the camp sites

Maliau Basin Field Studies Centre

Cookenia spp. Fungus

Dicuspiditermes nemorosus termite mound growing out of a buttress root

Preparing fake grublets made out of plasticine to look at predation

Hospitalitermes sp. Termite Foraging Column

Dysphania subrepleta (Day flying geometrid obtaining salts from civet poo)

Fieldwork

Catterpillar – potentially irritating to the skin

Microcerotermes dubius arboreal termite nest

Spooning trees?

Coleoptera

Plasticine grublet under the microscope. Can you identify the bite marks?

Termites

View over Maliau Brigde

Chalcosoma moellenkempi

View from the research station

Walk towards field sites

Mailau river

Forest trees

Mailau Basin Field Studies Centre

The Extreme World of Japanese Snow Macaques (Nihonzaru 日本猿)

I remember being amazed when I saw these Japanese Snow Macaques on the telly on a wildlife documentary. It was a great privilege to have had the opportunity to sit and watch these remarkable primates living their lives in the freeezing cold Japanese Alps. They’re incredibly unique primates and so adorable!

Nagano Prefecture

Natural hot springs where the macaques chilled out

Observing Japanese Macaques

Huddling macaques

Japanese Macaques at a natural hot spring, Nagano

Hot springs for macaques to groom

Huddling macaques

Japanese Macaques at a natural hot spring, Nagano

Driving in the Japanese Alps

Huddling macaques

Japanese Macaques (Macaca fuscata)

Interesting papers I found about Biology and Ecology of Japanese Macaques, Macaca fuscata:

Enari et al (2016) discuss the importance of Japanese macaque and other mammals’ dung burial in snow. When the snow melts the dung frozen dung is exposed and allows a time lagged mammal-beetle interaction. This is important for maintaining plant regeneration. The researchers found 12 dung beetle species which I thought was incredible considering the harsh conditions up in the mountains.

If you’re interested in behaviour a new paper by Kawakami et al (2017) investigated the spontaneous first smiles of new born Japanese Macaques. These involuntary lip-corner raises are considered to be the origin of smile and laughter, as we see in humans and chimps. There is also some older research by Hanya et al (2007) comparing the behaviour of two populations of Japanese macaques and evaluating how this influenced their thermoregulation throughout the year. Basically, they love to huddle and stay still! And… Sometimes… Even make snowballs (Eaton, 1972).

Japanese snow macaques have a huge part to play in the culture of Japan. Interestingly, they are seen as sacred and associated with the gods at the beginning of the 8th century. As time goes on however, and as humans develop and domesticate further, there is a shift towards monkeys being disliked as they became massive pests to agriculture. There are some great links on the wiki page with some beautiful monkey art!

References:

Eaton, G. Primates (1972) Snowball construction by a feral troop of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) living under seminatural conditions : 411. doi:10.1007/BF01793660

Enari, H., Koike, S. & Sakamaki-Enari, H. J For Res (2016) 21: 92. doi:10.1007/s10310-015-0516-z

Kawakami, F., Tomonaga, M. & Suzuki, J.(2017) The first smile: spontaneous smiles in newborn Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) 58: 93. doi:10.1007/s10329-016-0558-7

Hanya, G., Kiyono, M. and Hayaishi, S. (2007), Behavioral thermoregulation of wild Japanese macaques: comparisons between two subpopulations. Am. J. Primatol., 69: 802–815. doi:10.1002/ajp.20397

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeys_in_Japanese_culture

Sex, Bugs & Rock N Roll!

On a bright and sunny June weekend in 2016, I was lucky to volunteer with the infamous outreach initiative, Sex & Bugs & Rock N’ Roll run by the British Ecological Society!

Fun activities included a colouring competition, ecological snakes and ladders, guess the poo (always very popular) and much more hosted by Wychwood Festival.

Biodiversity and Ecology at Scarborough Borough Council HQ

I was very lucky to undertake an internship with Tim Burkinshaw at Scarborough Borough Council. Tim is the Biodiversity officer and works in Parks and Countryside devision of the council where he manages many projects, including the Carrs Wetland Project. His job was very exciting and varied, ranging from carrying out ecological and archaeological fieldwork, working with farmers and locals as well as understanding and implementing environmental policy.

I worked one day a week during my third year at Hull University, Scarborough Campus. I had a role to play in the office where I helped to organise the “Biodiversity Action Plan” conference, which aims to help achieve the conservation objectives that are set for the Scarborough Local Biodiversity Action Plan, as a section of the UK wide action plan (UKBAP). Wetlands, habitats which include wet grasslands, woodlands, reed beds, fens and the drainage ditches network, are priority habitats, as they have unique wildlife and they’re threatened by agricultural development. The organisms associated with the habitats include water voles, otters, great crested newts and important aquatic/terrestrial plants/invertebrates.

Scarborough BAP
Current Scarborough BAP actions which are carried out by The Carrs Wetland Project include;

Identifying wetland resources
Providing advice and developing proposals with landowners to create wetlands as part of Environmental Stewardship and other proposals
Incorporating wetlands as part of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems with planning consent
Providing practical assistance with farm management

As well as “Connecting for Nature”, during my time working in the office, I was also encouraged to plan fieldwork for the Young Entomologists’ Network where we carried out fieldwork on farmland and assessed the dung beetle diversity.

This role was so varied, I also had the opportunity to join in with the recording of the radio interview with BBC’s Sue Nelson and the University of York Archaeology department and wrote this blog post from the day:

Reporting from Star Carr, a Peek in the Peat…

In Sulawesi, as an Entomologist!

During the field seasons of 2012 and 2013 I was the entomology team leader at Operation Wallacea, Indonesia. The country of Indonesia is a huge country made up of around 18,000 islands across 5,000km. With a population of around 260 million people, and an incredible diversity of approximately 730 different languages. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the island biogeography provides a hot-house for speciation in this tropical island region with an incredible examples of adaptation and endemism. The Wallacea region, named after the famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace

I worked in the main base for the university students doing the jungle training course, and the starting point for school students in south Buton is the village of Labundo. I conducted lepidoptera pollard surveys, banana baited bottle canopy arthropod surveys and Dung beetle surveys in both natural habitats and disturbed agricultural ecosystems. As well as this, I conducted rapid biodiversity assessment of termites using the standard transect method.