A good fellowship application takes time to craft, so if you are thinking of coming to the UK and are interested in climate change effects on insect reproduction - including different life stages, eggs, micropyles, imaging, microscopy, thermal limits, ecological physiology, plants and microclimates and more - now is the time to think about it! There are different schemes to consider, depending on eligibility criteria:
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Amazing news, my international exchange project to work with Sylvain Pincebourde (CNRS, France) was funded in May 2023! Sylvain and I have started working on linking microclimate (his expertise) and butterfly fertility (me). As a start, Sylvain visited Lincoln in June 2023 and we trialled two different thermal imaging cameras to measure temperature on wild and domesticated cabbages as well as eggs, caterpillars and pupae of the large white butterfly, Pieris brassicae. The wild black mustard, Brassica nigra, plants came from seeds that Nina Fatouros, Wageningen University, shared with me, while we grew kale (Brassica oleracea spp.) from organic seeds. The two thermal imaging cameras (FLIR E54 and FLIR T540) worked well, with the FLIR T540 comfortably outperforming the FLIR E54. No surprise there, as the price tag of the FLIR T540 is almost double that of the FLIR E54! The good news is that we can pick out the temperature differences across the leaves. This work was also done thanks to Teun's efforts - Teun is my summer Erasmus research intern for 2023. I look forward to developing this collaboration over the course of the next few years. Time is a tyrant and, as I have write this, my summer Erasmus student, Teun de Jong, has almost finished his internship. I first met Teun in Wageningen, in February 2023, during my visiting fellowship to the lab of Nina Fatouros. Teun was fascinated by my work on thermal fertility sensitivity in the large white butterfly, Pieris brassicae, and the experimental set up that Jamie Smith had worked on during last summer 2022 for his MSc research (as a side note, congratulations to Jamie on securing a PhD at the University of Hull!). Luckily, he secured an Erasmus research internship to come work with me in Lincoln this summer 2023! Teun has worked very hard this summer to replicate Jamie's experiments heating wild pupae of the large white butterfly, and measuring the effects of heat on butterfly reproduction success and fitness. Teun arrived the last week in May 2023, and, in a happy coincidence, I had just received news that I had been funded by the Royal Society for an international exchange with Sylvain Pincebourde. Teun therefore, started trialling different thermal imaging cameras with Sylvain's help. Following this, Teun launched into rearing butterflies and plants, setting up experiments and troubleshooting the butterfly's lack of interest in mating! I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Teun, who is looking for a PhD. I can highly recommend him, he is hard working, dedicated, and I have no doubt he will find a suitable project to pursue and excel in. It all started with an email in late August 2022. I wrote to Nina Fatouros at Wageningen University and Research (WUR), to ask her for some images (SEMs) of Pieris brassicae eggs. Over a few brief email exchanges, we discovered that we both shared an interest on insect eggs, and that we could learn from each other's different angles (mine on the evolution of reproductive traits, Nina's on plant-insect interactions). Nina invited me to apply for a Visiting Scientist Fellowship at WUR and then fast forward to 30th January 2023, I found myself on a train crossing the Channel heading for Wageningen, the Netharlands. I spent four intense (and fun) weeks at the Biosystematics Group, WUR. Nina, her PhD student Liana Greenberg, and I, drafted some hypotheses on latitudinal and climatic gradients effects on eggs of populations of Pieris spp. Nina and Liana have collected Pieris napi from across Europe, from Wageningen to Spain. Nina also has two stable populations of Pieris rapae and brassicae, which she has kept in the lab for a number of generations. I then spent several days in the company of Marcel Giesbers, a very knowledgeable SEM technician, to image Pieris eggs using Cryo SEM, which was a lot of fun (oh, and talking of Dutch cheeses with Marcel...). I have learnt a lot about plant-insect interactions (and dusted off my two botany exams taken decades ago), started a collaboration with an amazing colleague, and visited the Netherlands for the first time! I was made to feel at home by every member of the Biosystematics group, and I am indebted to Nina, Klaas, Eric, Liana, Wilma, Marcel, Patrick, Jordy, and everyone else at WUR + WEES for inviting me to give a talk. I really hope to be able to come back soon. Now the Royal Entomological Society annual conference is over, it's time for some reflection. With two colleagues, Sheena Cotter and Paul Eady, we organised this small annual meeting bringing together enthusiastic entomologists from the all over the world. This was the first hybrid (in person and online) conference run following the pandemic, and so it was exciting as well as daunting, getting the technology right, and hoping that people would want to meet in person. Ento22 run from the 13th to the 16th September 2022 at the University of Lincoln, UK, with several enticing pre- and post- conference activities (women in entomology, mentoring session, rewilding tour, music) and a post-conference workshop organised by the Global Insect Threat-Response Synthesis (GLiTRS). I felt so priviliged to be able to listen to our plenary speakers: Sylvain Pincebourde, on the importance of microclimate for insect responses to climate change, Jessica Ware, who gave a masterclass on how to weave research with creating a diverse space to study insects, and Nalini Puniamoorthy, who talked about all things insect-reproduction. I had a lot of fun. We had huge help from University of Lincoln professional services, and from Luke Tilley, Fran Sconce and Bianca Saccone of the Royal Entomological Society. I knew I would enjoy it, I just had not realised how much I missed meeting people face-to-face, talking science, and networking. It was hard work with three growing boys, juggling childcare, husband away, but I would do it all again (I am not sure Sheena agrees though!). For more action from the conference, search #Ento22 on Twitter. |
AuthorGraziella Iossa Archives
August 2023
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