I have to admit, when I first realised I had a trip to Kew Gardens for my Terrestrial Biodiversity and Conservation module, I was only mildly interested. But over 3 days this week, my preconceptions of Kew and what they did was completely overturned, and I have left this field trip with incredible respect and admiration of the work they are doing to protect plant species across the world. The field trip took us behind the scenes at Kew Botanical Gardens to meet the scientists and learn about the different projects Kew supports globally. We also had the chance to walk around the herbarium (brimming with pressed and dried specimens, some of which were hundreds of years old) and the plant nursery (where curators care for around 33,000 species of plants, growing them for scientific study and for display in the botanical gardens). We visited one of three nurseries, which had plants on the floor, the walls and the ceilings, ranging from huge palms and cycads to tiny water lillies, carnivorous plants and orchids as far as the eye could see (these are apparently a flight risk in the main public Botanical Gardens - some collectors can't get enough). I can honestly say I have never been so excited about plants. Yes, PLANTS. Let me tell you something, there is so much more than meets the eye to those green things we see in our back gardens and countryside. They are INCREDIBLE. Some of the adaptations we learnt about are absolutely spectacular, and just by looking at the photos below, you may get a sense of how biodiverse and beautiful they are and why plants are worth protecting. (Apologies for the lack of species names - alas, I am not a botanist! If anyone reading this is, please comment the names below!) This trip was designed to teach us about the ins and outs of Conservation work, but the main thing which has stuck in my mind is that of the 40(ish) MSc Conservation & Biodiversity students on the trip, I don't think any of us had any clue that a whopping 1/5 of all plant species are threatened with extinction around the world. ONE FIFTH. This ignorance to the peril plants are facing mainly stems from the fact that plant protection isn't really talked about in comparison to Animals. I am guilty of this myself. I usually rant about how charismatic megafauna always gets the attention when we should really be focusing Conservation efforts on those species which are lesser known, but it hadn't crossed my mind that plants have it worse. How naive I and many others are, for of course, no animal can survive without plants first. We heard from experts about the problems this causes with their Conservation efforts. In particular, about a partnership with the Natural History Museum, where Kew conducted a Global Assessment of the state of the world's plants; Plants Under Pressure. It was here that the figure of 1/5 appeared, as well as the concern that over 33% of the estimated 380,000 plant species 'are so poorly understood that we still don't know if they are endangered or not'. No prizes for guessing why plants are dying out: Of course, it's us. Humans. All the effects of Agriculture, Harvesting, Logging, Disturbance, Pollution, Mining and Invasive species (to name a few) are catching up with us and account for 81% of the threats to plant species. Whilst this is incredibly disturbing, our lectures this week taught us about the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, where the main aim is to halt the current and continuing loss of plant diversity globally. So what are Kew doing to combat this? Many things, actually. Here are a few initiatives we learnt about:
Of course, this is no where near the full extent of their work, but it was incredibly inspiring to hear that many of their projects have been successful. There is still a very long way to go to meet targets set for 2020, and this is a little disheartening, but after meeting these experts (who seemed to know everything about every plant ever) I have every faith that Kew will continue to achieve the goals they set themselves in the future. Here's some more photos of the field trip, and please do visit Kew Gardens to support their amazing work.
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2015 is absolutely flying by! A sure sign being that the annual Spanish field course with the University of Southampton is already over and done! I'm a little behind on this, as we landed back in the UK on Saturday night, but I thought a little summary of what we were up to would be quite nice! Each year, Biology and Zoology students in their first year at Southampton descend upon Bolonia on the south coast of Spain for the Experimental and Field Biology module. For the third time, I had the privilege of attending this trip as a Translator and Demonstrator, along with 14 other members of staff and around 90 undergraduates. This field trip is the highlight of first year for many, and is a great chance to get to know everyone on the course. The 10 day trip consisted of learning how to identify various plants and animals by their observable features, learning how to collect data in the field and conducting projects at the end of the week, to be presented to the whole group. Bolonia is a beautiful little town that the University of Southampton has been returning to year after year. Nestled in a bay on the Straight of Gibraltar, the area has very different habitats, ranging from open fields to pine forests and sand dunes. The trip began by exploring the local area and learning about the plant and invertebrate families found in the region, both native, (such as the Rockrose, Cistaceae family) and imported (such as the Agave americana). It wasn't restricted to these though! We found a chameleon, a couple of lizards and some teeny tiny snakes on the first day alone! Students then returned to the hostels to study the distinguishing features and taxonomy of everything they found and create posters on what they had learnt so far. Along with the other demonstrators, we drew up our own posters about the flora and fauna with their distinguishing features (see below) for revision purposes as unfortunately there was a test! But it wasn't all doom and gloom, everyone still found time to have some fun and enjoy the spectacular views of the area. Later on in the week explored the Ojen Valley, a beautiful area surrounded by cork oak, with a huge variety of Coleoptera. The data collected there and on the rock flipping day were used to introduce the first years to statistics so they would not feel as overwhelmed when they came to design their own projects.
Marine day began with a short presentation on marine taxonomy and what was likely to be found on the rocky shore, based on what we had collected last year. However the awkward timing of low tide meant that we did not find such a varied selection of phyla, but at least the sun was shining throughout! The second half of the field course was very much about the student's own research projects. Each demonstrator was assigned groups to supervise. My groups looked at The impact on pollinators after disrupting UV patterns on Cistaceae petals and Woodlouse preference of soil moisture and rock cover. Both worked exceptionally well in the time they were given! Once all the research and background reading had been done, each group did statistical tests on their data sets and created posters and videos showcasing their projects, to be presented to everyone at the hostel. They were seriously impressive, and certainly a lot better than when I did mine as an Undergrad! This marked the end of the assessment for the trip, so we organised some games on the beach, a treasure hunt and a pub quiz to lighten the mood. Our amazing hostel, Rios, brought out bottles of wine and jugs of sangria for everyone on our last night to celebrate, and more importantly, PAELLA. Our flight back to the UK left from Gibraltar in the early evening, so we had a great relaxing morning in the sunshine in Bolonia, then a little wander around Gibraltar itself before checking in - didn't see any Barbary macaques though! Parting ways at Heathrow was very strange, especially after spending every waking moment in each other's company, but that's what reunions are for! All in all, another brilliant trip! Had an amazing time and I hope that everyone else did too! If you'd like to find out more about the module (in a LOT more detail than I've gone into here) please follow this link: Biol1001 For more photos and tweets from this year's trip, follow this link: #SotonBiol1001 |
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