Old News

October 2009

Poster presentation at the University of Oxford Department of Zoology

August 2009

Field trip with the Pembrokeshire Organic Group and FWAG

Luckily the sun was shining for the first field trip to see my trials in action. About thirty people from FWAG and POG came to St Davids to have the grand tour. It started with a trip to the trial site to see the experiments and a talk to explain the importance of keeping a healthy dung invertebrate community. Atendees were shown trials looking at the impact of worming products and feed supplements on dung invertebrates and rates of dung breakdown. It was clear that dung treated with ivermectin appeared to be breaking down more slowly than all other dung. They were also shown covered buckets containing individual species of dung inveretbrates together with a dung pat placed on soil, and were able to observe how the invertebrates go about breaking down the dung.

It was then off to the barn at Emlych Farm where the emergence traps are stored. Everyone saw the dung invertebrates that had emerged from the dung.

Finally, we all headed back to the lab to see the products that were being trialled. The FECPAK faecal egg counting system was also on display and I demonstrated the procedure to interested farmers.

2009

Platform presentation at the Royal Entomological Society Postgraduate Forum

April 2009

Talk to the Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society

July 2008

The University of Oxford have awarded me the Professor Sir Richard Southwood Scholarship in Insect Ecology, starting October 2008 to study the impact of anthelmintic treatments on Dung Beetles.

I am currently planning my project, and liaising with farmers who have kindly offered to trial the different anthelmintic products on their cattle. I plan to carry out a series of preliminary experiments during the summer of 2008 in order to test my methods and generate a data set before the project begins in earnest.

I also have a large stack of papers on the subject, which I am slowly working my way through. When I go to Oxford in October, I hope to have read everything that has been published on the topic so I can begin a comprehensive literature review during the winter of 2008 before the next fieldwork season.

October 2008

As well as designing my project to the best of my ability, I am putting together a comprehensive literature review on the topic. At the moment, I am considering what to include and what not to include in the review, as the topic of the impact of anthelmintics on dung insects is vast to say the least! I hope to collaborate with other experts in the field on this in order to create a document of high quality to be published in a renowned journal.

In November, I will be returning to Pembrokeshire in order to individually meet all the farmers that have provisionally agreed to take part in trials to finalise details. I then hope to arrange a group meeting for all interested parties in Pembrokeshire during December and present my ideas as well as discuss any issues that individuals may have.