After what feels like ages (actually, 5 months is quite a long time!) I have finished my fieldwork, hurrah! I sampled soil and leaf-litter invertebrates, and microbes, in total of 38 sites in 6 different land-use types (deciduous forest, coniferous forest, heathland, pasture, cropland and urban areas) with the aim to compare how species differ …
March arrives and it's time for the annual Natural History Museum (NHM) Student Conference! I am on the student committee and so help with the organisation. There's a lot to do organising a conference but we learnt from last year and with new members on the team it seemed a lot less stressful this year! …
The majority of invertebrates hibernate during the winter, since they do not produce their own body heat like mammals and birds it is too cold for them to be active. However, 10cm under the ground the soil is often a few degrees warmer than the air and many soil animals are still active, including earthworm, so …
Victoria J. Burton 