This Spring, CBESS partners have continued full steam with processing of the 20,000+ ecological samples that were collected during the field campaigns last year. Both Bangor and Southampton Universities have provided updates which give an insight into the processing process.
Month: April 2014
Natural England: the ecosystem approach
Natural England is increasingly making use of the ecosystem approach in delivery of its work, especially at the landscape scale. We define ‘ecosystem approach’ as identifying the range of ways the natural environment provides benefits to society and engaging the beneficiaries in reaching decisions about the objectives and priorities for their environment.
University of Southampton: kept busy with macrofauna processing
The team at the University of Southampton have spent the last few months busily working away processing samples for macro fauna abundance and biomass.
RSPB/BTO: the benefits of birds…
BTO and RSPB research scientists are assessing the value of cultural ecosystem services provided by coastal birds, using data from our Wetland Bird Survey (a national, long-term survey where volunteers count birds on estuaries and other wetlands every month). We contribute to two parts of the CBESS project – valuation experiments and assessment of non-monetary value (through deliberative workshops).
CBESS/MASTS: post-graduate training course a great success
Last month CBESS and MASTS joined forces in Morecambe Bay to deliver a NERC funded residential skills development course for eleven postgraduate students and early career researchers. Leading researchers in the field of mudflat and saltmarsh ecology were brought in from institutions around the UK to impart their knowledge and experience of planning and conducting and major field campaigns in coastal habitats. The one week long course was based at Arnside’s YHA hostel, where we were excellently hosted by new owners Leah and Martin.
CBESS: Dr Scott Pedley appointed
CBESS has recently welcomed a new post-doc into the team.Dr Scott Pedley started as the Queen’s University Belfast/Durham University ecoinformatics postdoc on 1 May 2014 and will be helping with CBESS Themes 2 and 3.
University of St Andrews: Morecambe Bay Recreational Stakeholder Workshop 8 May 2014
In cooperation with Morecambe Bay Partnership, University of St Andrews will be hosting a recreational stakeholder workshop in Barrow-in-Furness next month.
Bangor University: sorting, sorting, sorting…
Since the summer campaign in 2013, Bangor-CEH people have been spending their time predominantly sorting the samples collected during the summer campaign.