BES 2016
The Termite-Ant Research Team had a productive BES 2016 and saw some excellent talks, especially the plenaries from Anne Chao and Hugh Possingham.
Education owl at BES
I presented the work from a collaborative review of forest canopy science. This review incorporates expertise from 17 co-authors from around the world and synthesizes the recent advances in canopy science, providing an update on the newly expanded canopy crane network and suggesting future directions for canopy science. Below is a video I took going up the newly built canopy crane near Xishauangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden, Yunnan, China.
Photos from the field - Biodiversity and Landuse Impacts (BALI) Termite-Ant Research Team (TART) expedition Feb/March 2016
Several TARTs set out from London on valentines day, to begin what we thought would be a three month field season. An extreme El Niño event scuppered some of our plans, but we were still able to spend six weeks at Maliau Basin, carrying out several experiments and collecting samples. Here are some photos from the field trip.
Maliau river
We are interested in the roles termites and ants play in rainforests. In order to study this, we have suppressed ants and termites on 50x50m plots at Maliau Basin, Sabah. In one of our experiments, we use three tools - fake caterpillars, live mealworms and seeds, to measure how the removal of termites and ants changes ecological communities, predation rates and seed removal rates.
Although it was very dry during our field expedition, we were able to collect decomposition experiments that we had established in 2015. We used wood blocks and leaf litter bags to investigate the roles of fungi and termites in rainforest decomposition. We were also able to measure C02, soil nutrients and bioturbation, as well as the continued measurement of herbivory on our experimental seedlings.
During our trip to Malaysia, we able to participate in 'Friends of Borneensis', a three day even held at University Malaysia Sabah. During Friends of Borneensis, high school students camp, learn different aspects of rainforest ecology and field-based ecological methods, including collecting insects, flying drones and tree climbing. We gave talks about using insects in rainforest ecology and had a great time with the students who were really keen.
Hannah and Lou with student at friends of Bornensis
Our Feb/March field trip was a success! We are now planning our next field trip - September and October 2016, when we will continue our experiments and sampling.
Sunday swim at Maliau river
Sunset at Maliau
Kota Kinablau sunset
Flora and fauna of the BALI (Biodiversity and Land Use-Impacts) termite-ant research team Feb/March 2016 trip
Although it was a very dry period in February and March 2016, we did encounter some very beautiful and exciting animals and plants!
Malaysian forest scorpion
Giant millipede
One week to go!
Just a week left before our three-month field trip to Borneo. I think we have got nearly everything sorted out, including 6 crates of equipment sent to Universiti Malaysia Sabah. It's Chinese New Year so there might be some delays, we'll see what happens!
This week we picked up a set of thermochron ibutton moisture and temperature loggers and a fancy field reader. Excited to test these out!
