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Natural Capital: Making nature pay?

“Proponents of natural capital accounting offer a compelling argument: by quantifying and valuing natural capital impacts and dependencies, and translating those assessments into systemised accounts, decision-makers in government and the corporate sector will be able to make more informed and, ultimately, sustainable decisions.

But can we assume that reliable and accurate economic information will translate into radical and effective action? It is over a decade since the Stern Review (2006) made the economic argument for Climate action. The 700-page Report concluded that failure to act would result in costs amounting to 5% of Global GDP per year, now and forever. Despite the sound economic warnings, action on climate change has not moved ahead at anything like the pace that is required. So what, if anything, is different about natural capital; why and how will putting nature on the balance books make a difference to how governments and corporations make decisions?…”

Read the full blog post on the Irish forum on Natural Capital.

The arguments outlined in this blog are developed in more detail in a report written for the National Economic and Social Council this year; Valuing Nature: Perspectives and Issues.

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About the Author

Dr. Patrick Bresnihan is a lecturer in Geography, Trinity College Dublin. His work spans the fields of political ecology, science and technology studies, and environmental humanities. Areas of research include the fisheries, water services, alternative energy and natural capital.  Find out more about his research here:

Website | TCD Profile
Twitter | @pbresnihan
Academia.edu | Profile

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Super-Ranging: Ranging behaviour in badgers isn’t always black and white!

Sometimes a species is so well studied it is hard to believe that there is anything new to discover about them. I’ve often felt this about badgers, the subject of my PhD research. Don’t get me wrong, I love badgers and they could never bore me. Ever. But there are just so many papers already written about every facet of their lives – their social structure, their ranging behaviour, their diet, their [really cool!] reproductive biology, and of course their role in the maintenance of bovine tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium bovis infection. At this stage, what could we not know? But with advances in technology, come new discoveries!

Our latest paper in the journal PLOS ONE describes a brand new “super-ranging” behaviour in badgers, which was revealed through the long-term deployment of GPS satellite tracking collars on a population of badgers in County Wicklow, Ireland by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS). Continue reading “Super-Ranging: Ranging behaviour in badgers isn’t always black and white!”

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What’s in a name?

Many linguists, psychologists, and anthropologists have discussed the concept of linguistic relativity: the relationship between the language a person speaks and the way that person thinks and views the world. As the primary language of the people of Ireland up until the 19th century, the Irish language (aka Gaeilge or sometimes Gaelic) is the repository of how people on this island thought and felt about the world around them for most of their recorded history. As part of this, Irish reflects the complex, colourful, and often idiosyncratic relationship that Irish people have had with the animals with which they share the island.

Names can show the people’s fondness for certain species, or they can highlight which aspects of an animal most stood out to them. For example, the ladybird, with its visually pleasing pattern of black spots on bright red elytra, has drawn the eyes of people all over the world and has an association with God or the Virgin Mary in many European languages, including both English and Irish. In Irish, it is known as Bóín Dé or “God’s little cow”, which is also the meaning of its Russian name, Божья коровка. Today, the ladybird’s bright, “bovine” pattern is seen as an example of aposematism, protecting the insect by signalling to potential predators that it contains bitter-tasting chemicals.

From jellyfish to wolves to ladybirds, the Irish language is full of evocative, beautiful, or comical names for native Irish animals.

Continue reading “What’s in a name?”

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Exploring Coevolutionary History: Do Entire Communities Shape the Evolution of Individual Species?

A recent study led by Laura Russo (Trinity College Dublin) and published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, explores coevolutionary patterns in diffuse networks and how these patterns may influence the evolution of individual species. Read more in the blog post snippet below, or see the full blog post on the Methods.blog: Continue reading “Exploring Coevolutionary History: Do Entire Communities Shape the Evolution of Individual Species?”

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Legumes: Giving Nitrogen Fixation A Leg Up

Featured Undergraduate post by Ciara O’Flynn.

At first glance, plants seem impressively independent. Unlike us, they can make their own food, through a process called photosynthesis which uses energy from sunlight. This is a pretty neat ability but, plants aren’t entirely self-sufficient. In order to grow and develop fully, they must get a sufficient supply of minerals from the soil – including a particularly important mineral: Nitrogen.

You might be deceived into thinking this is an easy task. Nitrogen does make up 78% of our atmosphere after all. However, plants can only assimilate nitrogen in the form of nitrate or ammonium, which means the nitrogen in our atmosphere first needs to be converted into one of these forms. This can be achieved naturally by bacteria and blue-green algae, but this doesn’t always meet the enormous nitrate demands for plants growing in dense quarters – say for example in a cropping system. This is where legumes come in! Legumes are a type of plant that has a symbiotic association – or a working relationship – with a class of bacteria called rhizobia. These rhizobia congregate in specialised areas called nodules in the legume’s roots. In these nodules, rhizobia love nothing better than to sit around all day and convert inert atmospheric nitrogen to nitrate which legumes and even neighbouring plants can readily absorb. Continue reading “Legumes: Giving Nitrogen Fixation A Leg Up”

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The 2017 EcoEvo hall of fame

As the year draws to a close, we thought we’d reflect on a some of our favourite scientific papers from 2017. There were only five entrants this year, but representing a broad range of work from across ecology and evolution, as chosen by PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from the School of Natural Sciences. So, without further ado, here are the papers from 2017 being entered into the EcoEvo hall of fame:

Carlson CJ, Burgio KR, Dougherty ER, Phillips AJ, Bueno VM, Clements CF, Castaldo G, Dallas TA, et al. (2017). Parasite biodiversity faces extinction and redistribution in a changing climate. Science Advances 3, e1602422.

“This paper got a lot of press this year as it is essentially the poster paper for the parasite conservation movement. The authors suggest that within the next 100 years, 5% to 10% of parasitic species may go extinct based on habitat loss alone and up to 24% of species are predicted to go extinct based on co-extinction with hosts. Thankfully, Acanthocephala (my study organisms) are predicted to fare well enough in the next 100 years, but it was an eye-opening analysis that provides important information to the parasite conservation cause.” Maureen Williams. Continue reading “The 2017 EcoEvo hall of fame”

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The Botany Bake Off (2017 edition)

Cakes and baking have always been running themes in the Botany Department here at TCD. This year, members of the Department have turned things up a notch for the second ever Botany Bake off! The rules were simple; bake something that represents your research or work in the department. The stakes don’t get higher than this…

This cake represents the research of Prof. Jennifer McElwain using fossil leaves to reconstruct the evolution of the earth’s atmospheric composition and climate over millions of years. The leaves around the edge are of the Ginkgo tree. The pattern on the cake top shows what these leaves look like under a microscope. The ‘molecules’ on top of the cake represent the CO2 and H2O in the atmosphere around the plant leaves.


This cake was presented by Dr. Laura Russo to represent her research in the food webs of pollinators. The apple pastry roses represent different plant species, depended upon by various fondant pollinator species! Continue reading “The Botany Bake Off (2017 edition)”

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What happens to animals when their habitat burns?

When you live in Ireland, it’s easy to forget that a good proportion of the world’s ecosystems regularly burn. In many regions, plants and animals have evolved to tolerate or even rely on fire. My recent paper investigates the factors that drive the success of an Australian gecko after fire. I found that the geckos were healthier after fires because of the availability of lots of prey, showing that these feeding relationships matter for a species that thrives after its forest burns. Continue reading “What happens to animals when their habitat burns?”

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Lightning Strikes at TCD

Secret Vatican archives, xenophobia, de-extinction, parasitism and hoovers were just a few of the many topics on the menu at the 2017 School of Natural Sciences Lightning Talks. This annual event brought together 24 PhD students and Professors from across the Botany, Geography, Geology and Zoology disciplines to present their research and battle it out to win the respect of their colleagues (and bragging rights). The catch? Presentations were limited to 120 seconds, a difficult feat considering how much scientists like to talk about their own work! Continue reading “Lightning Strikes at TCD”

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If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?

A recent study led by Sam Ross (Trinity College Dublin) and Dr. Nick Friedman and published in the journal Ecological Research, aims to ask how much we can learn from bioacoustic monitoring of ecosystems. Read more in the blog post snippet below, or see the full blog post on the IMECO blog:

“A recent study led by myself and Dr. Nick Friedman asks whether we can accurately measure how diverse different ecosystems are on the island of Okinawa, Japan. We set up 24 monitoring sites across the island in different locations – in forests, grassland, mangroves, near the beach and in the city – to monitor all the sounds that are produced near each site. We found that we can detect individual species and relate these sounds to natural patterns including the ‘dawn chorus,’ and we could identify sites with heavy human activity. All without having to look for any species. Continue reading “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?”