Taking to the Trees

Staff and students from the School of Biological Sciences at Plymouth University recently completed the Basic Canopy Access Proficiency course.The five-day course at Mount Edgcumbe, led by Canopy Access Ltd, taught us the skills to climb high into the trees. Forest canopies are extremely rich in biodiversity yet understudied and often overlooked. Accessing them is therefore an important skill in forest research, and allows for a wide range of biological and ecological parameters to be sampled, which could not be sampled from the ground.

Insects on the Menu

For some years, I have been promoting the notion of insects as a source of food for people. They are relatively cheap, efficient to farm, and nutritious. The idea is now being taken seriously as a potential solution to feeding billions of humans into the future. 

Recently, I have been involved in a series of activities on insect-eating, with some interesting events still to come. Read on for more details...

A tropical import

Rob Puschendorf, who recently joined our group as a lecturer, introduces himself...

Moving from the extreme heat of the Australian tropical summer to the English ‘spring’ this year was welcome change. After having spent the last six years in tropical north Queensland studying amphibian disease, ecology and evolution, a new job as a lecturer at Plymouth University was a complete and welcome change of scenery. I am very excited about teaching and developing exciting research projects with students, and am looking forward to working in Latin America again, where I am originally from.