A game demonstrating aspects of bumblebee natural history

The Bumblebee Game is an exciting outdoor game, which demonstrates aspects of bumblebee natural history including food chains, food webs and competition for food, predation by crab spiders, parasitism by Conopidae (Diptera) and brood parasitism by cuckoo bees. It has been played successfully with groups of 10-25 people. Although most suitable for 6-14 year olds, adults have had a lot of fun playing this game

The role of the North Atlantic Oscillation in controlling U.K. butterfly population size and phenology

Copyright @ 2012 The Authors. This article can be accessed from the links below.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.1. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) exerts considerable control on U.K. weather. This study investigates the impact of the NAO on butterfly abundance and phenology using 34 years of data from the U.K. Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS). 2. The study uses a multi-species indicator to show that the NAO does not affect overall U.K. butterfly population size. However, the abundance of bivoltine butterfly species, which have longer flight seasons, were found to be more likely to respond positively to the NAO compared with univoltine species, which show little or a negative response. 3. A positive winter NAO index is associated with warmer weather and earlier flight dates for Anthocharis cardamines (Lepidoptera: Pieridae), Melanargia galathea (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), Aphantopus hyperantus (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), Pyronia tithonus (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), Lasiommata megera (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) and Polyommatus icarus (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae). In bivoltine species, the NAO affects the phenology of the first generation, the timing of which indirectly controls the timing of the second generation. 4. The NAO influences the timing of U.K. butterfly flight seasons more strongly than it influences population size.This study was supported by a multi-agency consortium led by the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), including the Countryside Council for Wales, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, the Forestry Commission, Natural England, the Natural Environment Research Council, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and Scottish Natural Heritage. This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Ocean acidification needs more publicity as part of a strategy to avoid a global decline in calcifier populations

Ocean acidification (OA) is caused by increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, which dissolves in seawater to produce carbonic acid. This carbonic acid reduces the availability of dissolved aragonite needed for production of some invertebrate exoskeletons with potentially severe consequences for marine calcifier populations. There is a lack of public information on OA with less than 1% of press coverage on OA compared with climate change; OA is not included in UK GCSE and A Level specifications and textbooks; environmental campaigners are much less active in campaigning about OA compared with climate change. As a result of the lack of public awareness OA is rarely discussed in the UK Parliament. Much more public education about OA is needed so that people can respond to the urgent need for technological and lifestyle changes needed to massively reduce carbon dioxide emissions

Temporal variations in English Populations of a forest insect pest, the green spruce aphid (Elatobium abietinum), associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation and global warming

Based on an exceptionally long modern ecological dataset (41 years), it has been possible to show that warm weather in England associated with a positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index causes the spring migration of the green spruce aphid (Elatobium abietinum), a pest species of spruce trees (Picea) to start earlier, continue for longer and contain more aphids. An upward trend in the NAO index during the period 1966-2006 is associated with an increasing population size of E. abietinum. It is important to understand the mechanisms behind the population fluctuations, because this aphid causes considerable damage to Picea plantations. Present day weather associated fluctuations in forest insect pests may be useful analogues in understanding past pest outbreaks in forests

Practice Safe Science: Five reasons to protect your scientific data

Research data management is quickly becoming one of the most pressing issues facing the scientific community, not just for university management teams, but for every individual researcher. The tech company Digital Science produced an infographic that captures five reasons why more attention is needed to attain a more secure system. Nathan Westgarth elaborates on the points presented and on how the research process can be made more efficient through the better use of technology

The association between dog ownership or dog walking and fitness or weight status in childhood

BackgroundHealth benefits of dog walking are established in adults: dog owners are on average more physically active, and those walking their dogs regularly have lower weight status than those who do not. However, there has been little research on children.ObjectivesThis study aimed to examine the association between dog ownership or dog walking and childhood fitness or weight status.MethodsA survey of pet ownership and involvement in dog walking was combined with fitness and weight status measurements of 1021 9 to 10-year-old children in the Liverpool SportsLinx study.ResultsWe found little evidence to support that children who live with, or walk with, dogs are any fitter or less likely to be obese than those who do not.ConclusionsThis is an important finding, as it suggests that the activity that children currently do with dogs is not sufficient enough to impact weight status or fitness

Evaluation of an open source method for calculating physical activity in dogs from harness and collar based sensors

Abstract Background The ability to make objective measurements of physical activity in dogs has both clinical and research applications. Accelerometers offer a non-intrusive and convenient solution. Of the commercialy available sensors, measurements are commonly given in manufacturer bespoke units and calculated with closed source approaches. Furthermore, the validation studies that exist for such devices are mounting location dependant, not transferable between brands or not suitable for handling modern raw accelerometry type data. Methods This paper describes a validation study of n = 5 where 4 sensors were placed on each dog; 2 on a harness and 2 on a collar. Each position held two sensors from different manufacturers; Actigraph (which has previously been validated for use on the collar) and VetSens (which provides un-filtered accelerometry data). The aims of the study was to firstly evaluate the performance of an open-design method of converting raw accelerometry data into units that have previously been validated. Secondly, comparison was made between sensors mounted at each location for determining physical activity state. Results Once the raw actigraphy data had been processed with the open-design method, results from a 7 day measurement revealed no significant difference in physical activity estimates via a cutpoint approach between the sensor manufacturers. A second finding was a low inter-site variability between the ventral collar and dorsal harness locations (Pearsons r2 = 0.96). Conclusions Using the open-design methodology, raw, un-filtered data from the VetSens sensors can be compared or pooled with data gathered from Actigraph sensors. The results also provide strong evidence that ventral collar and dorsal harness sites may be used interchangeably. This enables studies to be designed with a larger inclusion criteria (encompassing dogs that are not well suited for wearing an instrumented collar) and ensures high levels of welfare while maintaining measurement validity

The North Atlantic Oscillation, climate change and the ecology of British insects

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Evidence is accumulating that climate change is having a significant effect on a wide range of organisms spanning the full range of biodiversity found on this planet. This study investigates the ecological role of climate change, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and habitat change on British insect populations. Despite the NAO having a considerable effect on British weather, the role of the NAO on British insects has not previously been studied in great detail. The World's two best entomological time series datasets were used – the United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) and the Rothamsted Insect Survey of aphids – both surveys with very large sample sizes and high quality data. Summary of main findings: 1. Warm weather associated with a positive NAO index caused the spring migration of the green spruce aphid (Elatobium abietinum), a pest species of spruce trees (Picea) to start earlier, continue for longer and contain more aphids. An upward trend in the NAO index during the period 1966-2006 is associated with an increasing population size of E. abietinum. 2. The NAO does not affect the overall UK butterfly population size. However, the abundance of bivoltine butterfly species, which have a longer flight season, were more likely to respond positively to the NAO compared to univoltine species, which show little or a negative response. 3. A positive winter NAO index was associated with warmer weather and earlier butterfly flight dates. For bivoltine (two generations in a year) species, the NAO affects the phenology of the first generation, and then the timing of the second generation is indirectly controlled by the timing of the first generation. The NAO influences the timing of the butterfly flight seasons more strongly than it influences population size. 4. Butterfly data from Monks Wood National Nature Reserve in Cambridgeshire showed that the NAO does not affect the abundance of the whole butterfly community, but it does affect the population size of some species. The NAO does not affect butterfly diversity, but there were decreases in butterfly diversity and number of species with time. 5. The total number of butterflies counted at Monks Wood was constant for most of the time series. However, the population size of the ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus) increased from very low numbers to more than half the total number of butterflies counted each year. Therefore the total population size of all the other species has decreased considerably. 6. The NAO was more important than climate change in determining the flight phenology of the meadow brown butterfly (Maniola jurtina) at Monks Wood. In conclusion, the NAO affects the abundance of some species of British butterfly, and an aphid species, with a stronger effect on the timing of flight rather than abundance. There was evidence for a long-term decrease in the biodiversity of butterflies at Monks Wood and this decrease is likely to continue.Brunel University

A qualitative investigation of the perceptions of female dog-bite victims and implications for the prevention of dog bites

Preventing dog bites is an increasingly important public health and political issue with implications for both human and animal health and welfare. Expert opinion is that most bites are preventable. Intervention materials have been designed to educate people on how to assess the body language of dogs, evaluate risk, and take appropriate action. The effectiveness of this approach is rarely evaluated and the incidence of dog bites is thought to be increasing. Is the traditional approach to dog bite prevention working as well as it should? In this novel, small scale qualitative study, the perceptions of victims regarding their dog bite experience were explored in-depth. The study recruited 8 female participants who had been bitten by a dog in the past 5 years. In-depth, one-to-one interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that dog bites may not be as easily preventable as previously presumed, and that education about dog body language may not prevent some types of dog bites. The reasons participants were bitten were multifaceted and complex. In some cases, there was no interaction with the dog before the bite so there was no opportunity to assess the situation and modify behavior around the dog accordingly. Identifying who was to blame, and had responsibility for preventing the bite, was straightforward for the participants in hindsight. Those bitten blamed themselves and/or the dog owner, but not the dog. Most participants already felt they had a theoretical knowledge that would allow them to recognize dog aggression before the dog bite, yet participants, especially those who worked regularly with dogs, routinely believed, "it would not happen to me." We also identified an attitude that bites were "just one of those things," which could also be a barrier prevention initiatives. Rather than being special to the human-canine relationship, the attitudes discovered mirror those found in other areas of injury prevention. A new approach to dog-bite prevention may now be required, drawing on other injury prevention strategies including awareness-raising and minimizing the damage caused by a bite when it happens