TOPICS
What would you like to know?
RESEARCH BLOG
A research journey...
This research blog is where I’ll be documenting my own personal research journey, the trials, tribulations, successes and failures. Part of the joy of a PhD is knowing that in one way or another, you will contribute something novel to science, pushing our knowledge and understanding in a positive direction, little by little, experiment by experiment. Every failure is its own form of success, but fingers crossed I find something interesting to share none the less! Check here for the latest and (hopefully) greatest.
FUNGI
What lies beneath...
Global ecosystems would literally cease to function without fungi. They recycle organic matter, help plants access both water and nutrients through symbiotic associations and form complex subterranean networks linking individuals and species to each other. Considering we are more closely related to fungi than plants and that they form a whole kingdom of their own, these are both fascinating but In many ways understudied organisms.
FLORA
Nature's solar panels...
Plants in all their shapes and forms harness the light from the sun to fix carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into food that is the first step in the cascade of all life on earth. As a result we call these plants primary producers or “autotrophs” and their diversity and adaptability is bewildering! They provide the oxygen we breath, structure many of the habitats in which species live and regulate the climate, in short they are the green architecture upon which most of life, in one way or at one time or another relies.
FAUNA
The birds and the bees...
Every creature you can think of from the beautiful Amazon milk frog (Trachycephalus resinifictrix), to the European badger (Meles meles) to the New Zealand bell bird (Anthornis melanura) contribute, to a greater or lesser extent, a functional role to forest ecosystems. Animals of all shapes and sizes help to disperse seeds, modify their environment and help to sustain either directly or indirectly many of the services we derive from the natural world, sometime in ways that are not immediately obvious. The maintenance of global biodiversity, across all kingdoms, has thus become a core priority in many parts of the world.
THEORY
The foundation of understanding…
Theory underpins all we know, and what we think we might know about the natural world. But what good is a theory if it can’t be communicated and understood? This section looks into some of the more interesting (possibly just to me..) and foundational concepts in ecology, contextualised where possible within forest systems and presents in a no-nonsense and easy to understand format. Naturally not everything can or will be covered, and many of the topics will be a simplification of a considerably more complex concept, but that’s what extra reading is for! Some of which I’ll try to include.
