The spring months have mostly been about engagement, but behind the scenes were as busy as ever interrogating data and looking for patterns.
University of Southampton
University of Southampton: are ecosystem services academic?
Prof Martin Solan (of CBESS), Dr Clive Trueman and Dr Laura Grange are hosting a two day meeting at University of Southampton.
CBESS/MASTS: postgraduate and early career training in Feb 2015
The CBESS team is once again returning to Warton Sands in Morecambe Bay to deliver the second Advanced Training Short Course funded by NERC; biodiversity and ecosystem assessment in the coastal margin (BESA)
CBESS Annual Science Meeting 2015
The CBESS team met in York at the start of January for two days to discuss the best way to incorporate scale and context into our data analysis and how to best approach up-scaling biodiversity and ecosystem services and finally the creation of novel tools for Ecosystem Service Provisioning.
Autumn 2014: our data keeps growing
As autumn cools the air and our coasts become increasingly wild, wet and windy, CBESS members give a recap of events over the last three months. The collection of CBESS data continues to grow, with more and more samples being processed each day. This is providing the Data Analysis Working Group (DAWG) with an increasingly complex dataset to explore. With Theme 1 (socio-economic and ecological data collection) nearing completion, researchers are beginning to look at Themes 2 and 3: scale effects and context dependency on biodiversity and ecosystem service relationships.
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.
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/MASTS: post-graduate training, feedback from last year’s participants
Applications for the 2015 ‘Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Assessment’ training course are open until 14th November 2014. In February we hope to build on the success of the 2014 course and we have made some additions and improvements to the program based on the feedback we received from students. We are also lucky to have an international component in the form of Professor Stefano Lanzoni from the University of Padova.
Autumn 2013: ecological data collection is over
In August 2013, the CBESS Team began the final push to collect data for the Summer Field Campaign in Morecambe Bay and the Essex Marshes. Conditions were very different to winter with fieldworkers suffering sunburn and dehydration, compared to suspected frost bite!