Trinity College Dublin, Ecology and Evolution
Zoology TY week is a programme of events put on for 24 transition year (4th year) students per year, drawn from schools across Ireland. Gaining a place is a competitive process, with 90 or so applications in each year so far. The winners get to experience what it’s like to be a zoology undergraduate, participating …
Continue reading “How to be a zoologist – Transition Year Week 2019”
Final-year undergraduate students summarise their undergrad thesis projects in TCD Zoology and Botany.
This week saw the first National Biodiversity Conference take place 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. Prof Jane Stout details the event.
Prof Yvonne Buckley on what we can do for nature in Ireland.
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.
On the evening of Friday the 28th of September, the event known as PROBE took place in Front Square. Part of European Researchers’ Night, PROBE was described by organisers as “a free public pop-up festival showcasing the diverse range of academic research taking place in Dublin”. No event on Dublin research would be complete without …
Continue reading “From Worms to Wildfire: Natural Sciences at PROBE 2018”
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 …
“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 …
Continue reading “Mixed Messages, Pesticide Pestilence and Pollinator Populations”
The debate on what is better for the environment and by extension many ecosystem services, high intensity conventional farming using large amounts of fertiliser and pesticides on mostly homogenous areas or low intensity possibly organic farming in a heterogeneous landscape seems to be a no-brainer. High intensity farms are pressing into natural habitats, pesticides are …
As mentioned previously on the blog, Andrew Jackson and I started a new module this year called “Research Comprehension”. The module revolves around our Evolutionary Biology and Ecology seminar series and the continuous assessment for the module is in the form of blog posts discussing these seminars. We posted a selection of these earlier in the …
Continue reading “Seminar series highlights: Phil Stevenson”