NATO
LICHEN MONITORING WORKSHOP
Orielton
Field Centre, Pembrokeshire: 16-23rd August, 2000.
Organised by: Pat Wolseley (NHM) & The
British Lichen Society.
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was an Advanced Research Workshop sponsored by NATO
to encourage collaboration between NATO and scientists
from partner countries. Participants came from Europe,
the former Soviet Union and USA, where lichen biomonitoring
is already established; and from countries such as Tajikstan,
Thailand and Sri Lanka, where cost-effective monitoring
programmes are urgently needed. The objective was to
discuss methods of assessing gaseous and metal pollution,
biodiversity and sustainable management, and RDB species
action plans. |
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An
intensive programme of presentations and discussions was interspersed
with short visits to sites within easy access from Orielton
illustrating aspects of lichen monitoring, from management
of important National Nature Reserves with Red Data Book species,
to coastal sites affected by oil from the Sea Empress disaster
in 1996. The outcome of this workshop will be a review of
Lichen Monitoring methodology and application, to be published
in the NATO Advanced Research Workshop series by Kluwer. |
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Biodiversity
Training Course in El Salvador
La
Laguna Botanic Gardens, San Salvador: 3-14 July, 2000.
Organised by: Alex Monro (NHM).
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of the barriers to the conservation of biodiversity
for many developing countries is the lack of people
trained in the acquisition and identification of biodiversity
data. Seeking to address this in El Salvador is one
of the main aims of a Darwin Initiative project, 'Empowering
local people to manage the biodiversity of El Salvador',
initiated in May 1999. This is being achieved through
an annual 2 week training course held in San Salvador.
The second of these took place in July of this year.
Each course involves 15-20 participants from a broad
range of backgrounds: park guards, coffee farm managers,
NGO workers, final year university students and scientists,
broadly representative of the agents involved in biodiversity
conservation in the country. |
Participants erecting a malaise trap used for monitoring
Pimplinae wasp diversity. |
The
course focuses on 3 key groups of organisms: Pimplinae ichneumonid
wasps, and ferns and trees in the shade coffee ecosystem.
Participants are trained in collecting techniques, the preparation
and storage of collections, the identification of the key
groups, collections as biodiversity data and the role that
collections can play in helping countries fulfil their commitments
to the Convention on Biological
Diversity through initiatives such as the Mesoamerican
Biological Corridor.
Arboles
del Mundo Maya/Trees of the Mayan Area Workshop
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Ceiba
pentandra (L.) Gaertn. one of the tree species
selected for the CD.
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The second workshop of the project was held
in September, 2000 at the Universidad Autónoma
de Yucatán, in Mérida (Mexico) and was attended
by 14 people from Belize, Guatemala and Mexico.
During
this workshop different models of field guides
were discussed, and participants were introduced
to the database system used in the "Trees
of the Maya Area Fieldguide Kit" which
will be released on CD in 2001. We also finalized
the trees to be included, and allocated work
toward the final product.
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CONFERENCES
& FIELDWORK
Nancy Garwood and Chris Minty attended 'Exploring forest
diversity and change: Science and policy results from the
network of Forest Dynamics Plots' in June, in Singapore.
The meeting was organized by the Center for Tropical Forest
Science, part of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Left to right: Ellen Dean (UC Davis), Mike Nee (NYBG)
and Lynn Bohs (University of Utah) at the Solanaceae
conference. |
Closer
to home, Sandy Knapp and Peter Stafford attended the
Fifth International Solanaceae Congress in
Nijmegen, The Netherlands in July.
Shortly afterwards Sandy travelled to Panama
to collect for both Flora Mesoamericana and various
Solanaceae projects until 29th August and Alex Monro
joined her towards the end of the month.
Nancy
Garwood has also spent some time on fieldwork recently,
spending four weeks in Yasuni, Ecuador in August
in support of her research project based there.
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In
October and November, Angie Newton and Neil Bell spent six
weeks doing field work in New Caledonia, Queensland,
New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. They focused
on the family Rhizogoniaceae, for Neil's PhD research, and
on the Pterobryaceae and other pleurocarpous mosses, for
Angie's research. The Australian bryologists were very hospitable
and their help with field work and suggestions for collecting
localities was greatly appreciated.
The Department was represented at the
16th International Diatom Symposium by
Bob Ross, Eileen Cox, Ingrid Jüttner, Geraldine Reid, Elliot
Shubert and Pat Sims in August. The IDS was sponsored by
the University of Athens and over 150 persons attended,
representing 30 countries.
Meanwhile William Purvis was invited to attend a meeting
organised by the Italian National Agency for the Protection
of the Environment in November, to take part in a workshop
to discuss harmonisation of methods of lichen monitoring
in Europe. William also represented the British Lichen
Society at the evening reception held at the House of
Commons on 7th November. In addition William travelled with
Ben Williamson & William Dubbin (Department of Mineralogy)
and Baruch Spiro (NIGL, Keyworth to Ekaterinburg, to Russia
in October to meet staff of the Institute of Mineralogy.
The visit was funded by the 'MinUrals'
(EU INCO-Copernicus 2) grant to carry out environmental
studies in this region. The project involves a consortium
of European and Russian scientists and will create valuable
opportunities for scientific and technical exchange amongst
researchers.
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Rob
Huxley also represented the Museum, along with fellow
Departmental members, Steve Cafferty and Anne Hume,
at the recent Taxonomic Databases Working Group
meeting, focusing on digital imaging, held at the Senckenberg
Museum in Frankfurt, Germany in November. |
Angie
Newton attended the
Annual Meeting of the American Bryological and Lichenological
Society/American
Society of Plant Systematists/ Botanical Society of America
in Oregon in August. There was ample opportunity for extensive
discussions with colleagues (including Cymon Cox, now a
post-doc at Duke University) in addition to participating
in several days fieldwork in the Olympic Peninsula rainforest.
Charlie
Jarvis visited Turin, Italy in December to give a public
lecture on Linnaeus in the Museo Regionale di Scienze
Naturali's "Forumnaturae" series, and also to spend
some time working at the University Herbarium (TO), which
houses Carlo Allioni's collections.
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