Author: Jane Stout

Jane Stout is a Professor in Botany and leads the Plant-Animal Interactions research group. She’s based in the Botany Discipline in the School of Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin.
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Bees: common myths and misunderstandings

There are >20,000 different species of bee worldwide. They are a diverse group, encompassing the tiny 2mm long Perdita minima and the massive 38mm long Megachile pluto. They all* have one thing in common: their larvae feed on pollen from flowers. The protein in the pollen is necessary for larval growth and development, and thus for producing healthy adult bees. When visiting flowers to collect pollen and nectar to fuel flight, adult bees transfer that pollen from flower to flower, thus making them brilliant pollinators.

And bees are ever-increasing in popularity across many sectors including conservation, gardening, fashion, marketing, and public/corporate strategies. Their popularity means that there has been an increase into bee research, and lots of excellent conservation strategies (including our own All-Ireland Pollinator Plan), but it also means there has been a lot of mis-use of bees in corporate and even well-meaning conservation strategies (see Charlotte de Keyzer’s excellent “bee-washing” website). And as their popularity spreads, so does the amount of incorrect information about them, which makes an Melittologist (someone who studies bees), buzz with frustration…

So here’s a blog I’ve been meaning to write for some time** – six statements about bees that are often used, but aren’t true…

Continue reading “Bees: common myths and misunderstandings”
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Worthless wetland?

For the past few months, I’d been hearing about this amazing urban wetland oasis. A wildlife haven right in the middle of Tallaght, on the south-west outskirts of Dublin. Every time I bumped into Collie Ennis on campus he was bouncing excitedly about how wonderful this place was and how I should go down there and see all the plants, and the incredible insect life. This sounded so amazing and I was looking forward to planning some insect and plant surveys there next year.

And then I heard this weekend that it’s been destroyed. Obliterated. Annihilated by >1.5m of dredged silt dumped on top of the entire habitat. This was a crushing blow to all those people caring for these wetlands and their wildlife, and the devastation they felt was reflected far and wide. If you haven’t seen the story – it was covered by Irish Times and Joe.ie as well as on Collie’s own Twitter feed. 

Continue reading “Worthless wetland?”
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World Bee Day 2019

Jane Stout with President Higgins in his Garden on Bee Day 2019

Happy World Bee Day!

As well as launching our lab theme song, this World Bee Day, I was privileged to meet the President, Michael D. Higgins, at Áras an Uachtaráin. Along with Una Fitzpatrick, the Chair of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan from the National Biodiversity Data Centre,  we visited the walled garden in the Áras and discussed bees, the importance of pollinators and the plight of biodiversity in general. The President is a staunch advocate for nature (see his impassioned speech from the National Biodiversity Conference here), as illustrated by his press release today…

Continue reading “World Bee Day 2019”
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A New Horizon for Nature

This week saw the first National Biodiversity Conference in Ireland at Dublin Castle – an incredible joint effort between the National Parks and Wildlife Service of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the Irish Forum on Natural Capital to engage people in nature. The conference aimed to get all relevant parties in the room to progress biodiversity conservation and restoration in Ireland.

Delegates at Dublin Castle for the New Horizons for Nature conference

The conference opened with a powerful short film by Crossing the Line Productions “This is Ireland” which set the tone for a fantastic two days.

Continue reading “A New Horizon for Nature”
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Irish Pollinator Research Network goes from strength to strength…

Following on from the successful meeting last year, we held our Second Annual Irish Pollinator Research Network Meeting on 18th January 2019. This year, 22 researchers from TCD, UCD, DCU, MU, TUD and QUB gathered at DCU’s Water Institute for 16 oral presentations and discussions about pollinator, pollination and pollen research currently underway in Ireland. Continue reading “Irish Pollinator Research Network goes from strength to strength…”

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Mixed Messages, Pesticide Pestilence and Pollinator Populations

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“We’re getting mixed messages from scientists about the effects of neonicotinoids on bees” – I have heard this from several sources, including a very senior civil servant in the UK and from an intensive tillage farmer in Ireland. A recent article in the US media says pretty much the same thing. An article in the Guardian last week entitled “UK drew wrong conclusion from its neonicotinoids study, scientist says”, reports on Dave Goulson’s reanalysis of the Food & Environment Research Agency (FERA)’s own data, but draws the opposite conclusion.

So why is there confusion on bee decline and the role of neonicotinoids? I believe it’s down to several factors:

1. “Bees” are a diverse taxonomic group of insects, including the well-known eusocial honeybee Apis mellifera, the familiar bumblebees in the genus Bombus, plus hundreds of other species of bee, which have quite different life histories and ecologies, most of which do not form social colonies. When talking about bees, we need to be clear about which ones we are discussing. If everyone is clear about which taxonomic group they are talking about, this could cut down considerably on the confusion. (By the way, the Guardian used a picture of honeybees as the image accompanying their article on bumblebees).

2. Honeybees are managed by beekeepers. If a colony dies out (especially over winter in temperate countries), it is replaced by splitting a strong colony in spring. If the colony is sick, it is treated. When we talk about honeybee decline, we are either referring to colony losses (i.e. colonies dying out, which can be caused by a range of factors, especially parasites and diseases, and is highly spatio-temporally variable); OR we are referring to the fact that there are fewer beekeepers out there, or that each one is keeping fewer colonies. The point is, when colonies die out, beekeepers can restock and the total number of honeybee colonies depends on the activity of beekeepers. This is why there appears to be no decline in honeybees in the US. This is not the case for wild bees.

3. Eusocial bees, by the very nature of their colonial societies, are to some extent buffered against environmental stochasticity and pressures. If a few hundred honeybees are killed whilst out of the hive foraging during the summer, it may have little impact on the colony, because there are 50,000 or more honeybees left in the hive. This may be a reason why lab-based findings cannot always be scaled up when replicated at field level. Measuring effects at the colony-level is also another problem. A range of different experimental approaches has led to mixed conclusions on the effects of neonicotinoids on honeybees.

4. A huge number of independent peer-reviewed studies have shown negative lethal and sub-lethal effects of neonicotinoids on wild bees and other non-target organisms (e.g. see review by Pisa et al. 2015), in laboratory, and semi-field studies. Realistic field-level studies on the other hand are challenging methodologically: some bees have large foraging ranges and so studies must be conducted over large areas; pesticide free “control” sites are very hard to find; and wild bees are subject to a range of interacting pressures (loss of forage resources, parasites and disease, cocktails of pesticides, use of managed bees for pollination purposes, climate change…), and disentangling the effects of these pressures in a field experiment is hard. However, those few studies that have been conducted properly appear to support the lab and semi-field findings.

5. The media band-wagon… When the media polarise environmental issues, it’s very hard for people to make an informed decision – instead of crediting the general public with the intelligence to understand that the environment is highly variable in both space and time, and that ecological systems and interactions within them are highly complex, issues are presented as cut-and-dried in one direction or another. Thus the confusion is maintained, so that the next big news story, that contradicts the previous one, can have a bigger impact.

There shouldn’t be any confusion – neonicotinoids have sufficient negative impacts on non-target organisms for us to be concerned about their widespread and often prophylactic use (e.g. as seed dressings). We should also worry about the wider environmental impacts of pesticides like neonicotinoids – how persistent they are, how they get into the soil and water-courses and affect other organisms that provide essential ecosystem services. And we shouldn’t just be concerned about neonicotinoids – the massive cocktail of chemicals we intentionally and accidentally unleash on the natural environment could have long-term and very damaging effects to our natural capital. Including bees.

Author: Jane Stout, stoutj[at]tcd.ie

Photo credit: wikimedia commons

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What has nature ever done for us?

dogs watching tvAnti-environmentalists and apathists often ask why bother to conserve nature – what does it do for us? Cue enthusiastic green arm-waving and heavy sighs from environmental scientists and ecologists who have faced this attitude their entire careers.

Nature is undeniably important for the human race – we wouldn’t be here without plants fixing the sun’s energy into carbohydrates and producing oxygen as a by-product, we wouldn’t be able to grow any food to eat without the myriad of organisms which create and maintain the soil, and exposure to nature has numerous psychological and physical benefits for our health. And yet, it is not valued in political decision-making. The environment, particularly the living biological part of it, is a “cross-cutting” issue which means it’s ignored by most government departments, including those that should be valuing it the most (e.g. Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government; Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine; Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources). This is because most decision-making is driving by economics.

International momentum has been building for governments, businesses and organisations to begin valuing nature. This doesn’t just mean putting a price on nature – it’s not all about price-tags – but valuing natural capital in the same way that any other capital (financial, human, built etc.) would be valued. And accounting for this capital in decision-making processes at all levels (from individuals up to government policy).

Some countries and individual corporations have made good progress with this (e.g. the UK has a Natural Capital Committee, Coca-Cola and Puma have famously adopted Natural Capital Accounting systems), but there has been little progress in Ireland, until now.

In April, the first Natural Capital Ireland Conference was held, which brought together academics, government representatives from national and local levels, government organisations, NGOs, business and finance and other stakeholders. The point of the meeting was to try and increase understanding of valuing nature nationally, and progress natural capital accounting at all levels.

The report from this conference is now available on the Natural Capital Ireland website (www.naturalcapitalireland.com) and will be launched at the EPA Environment Ireland conference. In addition, the EPA and NPWS have been working with the conference organising committee to create a national Natural Capital Forum.

Whether this will bump the natural environment up the political agenda, and increase people’s interest and enthusiasm for nature remains to be seen… But we need to keep trying to convince people that nature is important, and that not having it is more expensive and economically damaging.

Author: Jane Stout, stoutj[at]tcd.ie

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Big is better!

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Reflections on geeking it up at Intecol 2013 by Jane Stout

Having not been to a 2000+ delegate, multi-session, international conference for several years, I was a bit nervous in the run up to INTECOL2013 “Into the next 100 years: advancing ecology and making it count” – would it be possible to see all the talks, read all the posters and meet all the people I planned to? (Answer: no). Would I remember everyone and would anyone remember me from past meetings? (Answer: some yes, some no – thank goodness for name tags). Could I follow in the footsteps of Katie Taylor, the last girl from Bray to take the stage at the London ExCeL Arena, and take the Olympic gold? (Answer: no; note to self: must try harder). But I needn’t have worried – INTECOL 2013 was excellent: it was well organised, the quality of the science was top-notch, the sun shone, and the whole thing was very inspiring and humbling. Continue reading “Big is better!”

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Technically speaking…

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Following the excellent Botany/Zoology postgraduate symposium in TCD a couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion in NERD club about giving scientific presentations – what makes a good one, what makes a bad one and which were the best in the symposium? Actually, we didn’t do the last bit, and scarily I could remember very few talks a week after the event (“do you remember so and so’s slide about x y and z?” NO!!). So, either I am becoming old and forgetful (likely), or I wonder whether it’s some form of desensitisation? Every conference is full of short talks I listen to and think “that was interesting” and then immediately forget. How can we give presentations that won’t be forgotten, or at least will be remembered for all the right reasons? Below are some of the points we discussed as a group – not an exhaustive list, but the random ramblings of a few academics, postdocs and postgrads.

What are the things to avoid – what makes a bad talk?

  1. Speaker running over time (both their own fault for putting too much in, and the chair’s fault for not keeping time properly).
  2. Too much text on slides – undergrads love it if there’s plenty for them to copy down as the lecturer is speaking (or to learn off by heart from the powerpoint slides just before the exam), but telling a story without the distraction of a load of text is much better for a scientific talk.
  3. Too much content – need to stick to one (or two) key take-home messages, particularly if the talk is just one of many people will hear during the course of a conference.
  4. Too many graphs – especially ones that are too small to see properly, or that are irrelevant – if a speaker needs to say “ignore all the graphs on the slide except the one in the top right” then they haven’t done their job of tailoring their talk to their audience and just presenting the one on the top right.
  5. Jargon – even in a room full of eco-evo people, abbreviations and technical terms should be avoided (as should giving the name of a gene or biochemical pathway in the talk title – but we may be biased on this one!)
  6. Not knowing what is coming up on the next slide – comes from a lack of practice
  7. Colour-blind insensitive colour schemes – avoid red on green and other such indistinguishable schemes
  8. Reading out the acknowledgements – this led to a discussion of whether the acknowledgements should come at the beginning or the end of a talk. The problem with having them at the end is the audience is left looking at a list of funders, collaborators and helpers, rather than the key take home message. The problem with having them at the beginning is the audience wants the speaker to get on and talk about something interesting. We ended up deciding that for short conference style presentations, having them at the end was best, but perhaps not covering a whole slide so that the key message/awesome graph can still be on the last slide to give the audience something to think about whilst clapping. But for seminars or longer talks, acknowledging that the work was a group effort at the beginning was a nice thing to do. And funding agencies could just be acknowledged with a logo on the title slide.
  9. Bad chairing – ok, so that one’s not the speaker’s fault, but it is very annoying

And what makes a good talk?

  1. A good story or narrative – a good talk tells the story in such a way that you are drawn in, the approach is logical (and seemingly obvious and you’re left thinking “why has no-one done this before?”) and the findings interesting and digestable
  2. Targeting the scope and contents of the talk to the time slot – putting enough in, but not trying to include too much. Getting the balance right.
  3. Leading the audience through the presentation so that they don’t get lost – clear ideas and questions as slide titles rather than introduction/methods/results/conclusions.
  4.  Being confident (but not cocky). Being enthusiastic.  Being yourself, or doing a really good job at acting confident and enthusiastic.
  5. Making eye contact or scanning the room – not picking on one person to talk to as this can be intimidating for that member of the audience. If actually making eye contact can be distracting, then looking at people’s foreheads or just over their heads, so it looks like you are making eye contact.
  6. Spend time explaining graphs/figures – the audience gets lost if the graphs just flash up with no explanation – point out the trends or important parts, explain axes and colours if necessary (but don’t go on too long). Try not to just pull figures from papers/your thesis, redraw graphs to simplify them and make them clear so that they aid the audience in following your story, and don’t make things more complicated.
  7. Know your audience and target your talk to them.
  8. Humour – use with caution.
  9. Have the ability to give your talk without any powerpoint slides/prezi – there may be a power-cut and you just have to carry on.
  10. Practice your talk – practice the slide transitions so that you know what’s coming up next and how you’re going to link the slides.

There are heaps of resources out there which say more or less the same thing – I really like Jane Wilton et al.’s BES Bulletin article

And here’s Michael Alley’s “The craft of scientific presentations”

And here are some more (from a VERY brief google search)…

http://matt.might.net/articles/academic-presentation-tips/

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/agu/scientific_talk.html

http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/Hany_Farid/Tutorials/Entries/2011/6/2_How_to_give_a_good_talk.html

http://oikosjournal.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/talk-and-stats-tips.pdf

Author

Jane Stout: stoutj@tcd.ie

Photo credit

http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/if-facebook-comments-are-gold-here%E2%80%99s-how-to-dig-for-more/attachment/audience-happy-2/

http://muratak.com/2011/11/24/5-ways-to-improve-your-pitches/