Dr Sarah Arnold attended the annual Ento conference 12th-14th September. This year it was hosted by Newcastle University, and the themes included networks and ecosystem services - an ideal fit with the project!

 

She presented a snapshot of early results from the project, demonstrating how ecological networks can be applied to understand crop pollination and identify key plants in field margins that may support better pollination.

Prof Steve Belmain and Dr Sarah Arnold visited NM-AIST staff and students 12th-15th March 2017 in order to hold meetings about the progress of various aspects of the project and agree the direction of future work.

It was an excellent chance for the MSc and PhD students to present their work so far and consider workplans in a lively atmosphere.

We also got to visit the field and see the new station trial setups on the NM-AIST on-campus farm/field station. The station trials will allow experimental testing of interventions under controlled conditions.

Elisante presents

PhD student Elisante presents preliminary pollinator abundance results.

Angela pps

Angela shows pesticidal plants drying for field trials.

 

Silvanus field station

MSc student Silvanus explains his field trial setup, to test how patches of pesticidal plants within fields can affect ecosystems services.

 

Tephrosia

An experimental plot of Tephrosia vogelii, part of Silvanus Mringi's station trials on ecosystems services from pesticidal plant patches.

 

nmaist team

NM-AIST students and Sarah Arnold.

Following on from last week's McKnight Foundation meeting held in Lilongwe, Malawi, and attended by several project partners, NRI and Kew staff have spent some time with LUANAR staff in and around Lilongwe, preparing for the next phase of field sureys and trials connected to the Darwin Initiative project.

Yolice Tembo accompanied Phil Stevenson, Iain Darbyshire and Sarah Arnold into the field to view farms, meet a few farmers, observe the ecosystems and importantly, to train graduate research assistants in the fundamental sampling and monitoring techniques needed to characterise the importance of semi-natural and unmanaged areas around farmland for insect ecosystems services.

 

Iain and grads

 

 

In particular, the field assistants Dalitso and Kelita received training in walked transects, plant diversity surveys and pan trapping techniques.

KandD

 

pantrapsmw

 

At this time of year, this part of Malawi is hot, dry and windy and the farmers are between cropping cycles, having harvested the last season's crops but still waiting for the rain before planting the new season's crop. Therefore, it is not the most biologically diverse time of year from the point of view of invertebrates or plants. Nonetheless, some beneficial invertebrates were observed during the day's work, including spiders, lady beetles and a praying mantis.

Ladybirdscrop2

 

We hope that the work in Malawi will provide us with valuable information about the importance of field margins and other non-cultivated areas in supporting sustainable yields, and also enable us to understand how generalisable certain recommendations about planting and margin management may be between countries and regions.

The Second International Conference on Pesticidal Plants was held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in February 2017.

Various snapshots of work related to and arising from the Darwin and McKnight support pesticidal plants/ecosystems services projects were presented by speakers from the UK and Eastern/Southern Africa. The whole conference is currently available on YouTube, but links below lead directly to the talks given by project staff and students.

ICPP

 

Videos here:

Angela Mkindi talk

Prof Steve Belmain keynote

Prof Phil Stevenson keynote

Dr Sarah Arnold talk

McKnight Foundation supported student from NM-AIST, Baltazar Ndakidemi, was recognised for his excellent photo at the recent McKnight Foundation meeting. The photo was taking during Baltazar's MSc research project in which he monitored beneficial invertebrate biodiversity on bean farms in Tanzania, providing valuable baseline data to support our McKnight and Darwin Initiative projects.

 

The photo shows two farmers explaining to Baltazar the importance of different plant species to them and their agriculture.

 

The McKnight judging panel liked that the photograph showed the idea of dialogue and two-way flow of learning between researchers and farmers.

Baltazar explains ecosystems services and plant diversity to farmers.