A lost opportunity – why you should back up your data, even if it is on paper

In my twenty years at the Silwood Park campus of Imperial College, I supervised something in the order of 120 MSc research projects and at least 150 undergraduate final year projects.  Before my stint at Silwood Park I had spent ten years working for the Entomology Branch of the then UK Forest Research Division working on the population dynamics of forest pests.  My first ever PhD student, Paddy Walsh, (sadly he died a few years ago), worked on the predators associated with the pine beauty moth, Panolis flammea, with a particular interest in carabid beetles (Walsh et al., 1993ab). I was thus well aware of how useful pitfall traps were as a research tool; relatively easy to deploy and maintain and very good, perhaps too good, at collecting data 😊

Too much data? Pitfall traps – and contents waiting for identification (courtesy of former PhD student Lizzie Jones)

An early star of the pitfall trapping world was Penny Greenslade, who addressed the critical issue of what pitfall trap catches were actually measuring and concluded that they were only useful in a very limited set of conditions (Greenslade, 1964ab). Coincidentally, Penny Greenslade did her PhD at Silwood Park (Greenslade, 1961) and having found her very battered thesis in the Silwood Park Library it occurred to me that a re-sampling of her sites would make an ideal BSc or MSc research project and so it proved. In 1995, Andy Salisbury, an extremely keen undergraduate entomologist, now Principal Entomologist at RHS Wisley, was the first student to repeat her 1959 survey.  Over the years a succession of students resurveyed her original sites (they were clearly identifiable from her thesis, although the vegetation associated with the sites was, in some cases different from when she conducted her trapping. By the time I left Silwood Park for pastures new in 2012, there were eight BSc project dissertations reporting the results of re-sampling Penny Greenslade’s original sites sitting on the shelves of my lab.

I still had PhD students based at Silwood Park when I left, so for two years I was retained as a Visiting Professor, which, given how much stuff I had (you have all seen what my office looks like and my office at Silwood Park was no different 😊) meant that I moved stuff gradually and piecemeal.  I moved my collection of PhD theses (44 at the time) early on, but delayed moving the almost 300 undergraduate and MSc theses as I wanted to triage them at leisure and only transfer those that I felt might be of use.

Now we come to the tragic bit, the Director of Silwood Park decided that he wanted to refurbish the building that my former office and laboratory were in, and without telling me, had my laboratory cleared and the contents skipped. To say that I was annoyed is somewhat of an understatement. Unfortunately, I had none of these theses in electronic form so the data and the story that might have been told, are lost forever 😦

That said, not all the data are lost, I have a partial record of the 2007 BSc thesis by Sarah Stow which to a certain extent, rubs salt in the wound, as it shows that there were indeed changes in the carabid community composition since 1959.

 Three of Sarah’s figures showing changes in carabid communities and abundance

Although it might have been courteous if my former Head of Department had contacted me before disposing of the the project reports, or had them moved into storage to give me a chance of retrieving them, I can in all honesty, only blame myself for their loss.  I should have been less tardy in emptying my lab, I should have clearly indicated that I still had an interest in the contents of my lab, and of course, I should have backed up my data!

Not only data I am never going to publish but data I can’t ever publish ☹

References

Greenslade, P. J. M. (1961). Studies in the ecology of Carabidae (Coleoptera). Ph.D. thesis, University of London

Greenslade, P.J.M. (1964a) Pitfall trapping as a method for studying populations of Carabidae (Col). Journal of Animal Ecology, 33, 301-310.

Greenslade, P.J.M. (1964b) The distribution, dispersal and size of a population of Nebria brevicollis (F) with comparative studies on three other Carabidae. Journal of Animal Ecology, 33, 311-333.

Walsh, P.J., Day, K.R., Leather, S.R. & Smith, A.J. (1993a) The influence of soil type and pine species on the carabid community of a plantation forest with a history of pine beauty moth infestation. Forestry, 66, 135-146.

Walsh, P.J., Leather, S.R. & Day, K.R. (1993b) The effects of aerial application of fenitrothion on the carabid community of defoliated and undefoliated lodgepole pine, Pinus contorta. Journal of Applied Entomology, 115, 134-138.

 

Being inspired by the BES

This week (20^th July) I have had the privilege of being able to interact with 50 undergraduates (mainly just finished their first year) under the auspices of the British Ecological Society’s new undergraduate summer school held at the Field Studies Council’s Malham Tarn Centre. The scheme enables aspiring ecologists to have “an opportunity to enhance their existing knowledge with plenary lectures from senior ecologists, fieldwork, workshops, careers mentoring and more at a week-long residential course” This was especially pleasurable for me because as a school boy and student I spent several enjoyable camping holidays at Malham and it gave me an opportunity to take part in a field course again, something I have missed since leaving Silwood Park where I ran the now defunct annual two-week long Biodiversity & Conservation field course. The programme included two ecological luminaries and old friends of mine, Sue Hartley from the University of York and plant scientist and author, Ken Thompson formerly of Sheffield University and also Clare Trinder from the University of Aberdeen.  Also in the programme was conservation biologist, Stephanie Januchowski-Hartley,  and additional input from the Chartered Institute of Ecology & Environmental Management (CIEEM), microbial ecologist, Dr Rob Griffiths from CEH and ecologist Dr Peter Welsh of the National Trust.

I arrived mid-morning of the Tuesday, having driven up from Shropshire to Yorkshire the night before, having taken the opportunity to stay in the old family home in Kirk Hammerton before it is put up for sale. Whilst there I also set a few pitfall traps to collect some insects that we might not catch otherwise. As it happened they were a dismal failure, returning mainly spiders, harvestmen and woodlice, plus one nice carabid beetle, more of which later. The weather didn’t look all that promising for an insect sampling session but I kept my fingers crossed and hoped that it wouldn’t rain as much as it did almost 40 years ago when my best friend from school and I aborted our camping holiday at nearby Malham Cove after three days of solid rain 😉

Malham Tarn – not quite raining

  I was greatly amused on arriving to be greeted by a very large arachnid lurking on an outhouse.

We breed them big in Yorkshire!

Malham Tarn Field Studies Centre

After checking my equipment and locating suitable sampling sites I joined the students, Karen Devine, the BES External Affairs manager and some of the PhD mentors for lunch. After lunch it was my slot, a chance to infect (sorry, inspire), fifty ecologically included undergraduates with a love of insects. After being introduced by Karen I launched into my talk to a very full room of students.

Karen instilling order and attention 😉

Ready and waiting to be inspired

The undergraduates came from thirty different UK universities with a strong female bias, 34:16. Exeter University had four representatives, with Reading, Liverpool John Moores, UCL and Bristol with three each. I was sorry to see that there were no students from my Alma mater Leeds, or from my former institution, Imperial College, once regarded as the Ecological Centre of the UK, although UEA where I did my PhD, had two representatives.  There was also one representative from my current place of work, Harper Adams University. Incidentally one of the students turned out to have gone to the same school that I did in Hong Kong, King George V School, albeit almost fifty years apart; a small world indeed.

I set the scene by highlighting how many insect species there are, especially when compared with vertebrates.

The importance of insects and plants

Or to put it another way

After a quick dash through the characteristics of insects and the problems with identifying them, exacerbated by the shortage of entomologists compared with the number of people working on charismatic mega-fauna and primates, I posed the question whether it is a sound policy to base conservation decisions on information gained from such a small proportion of the world’s macro-biota.

Then we were of into the field, although not sunny, at least it was not raining so I was able to demonstrate a variety of sampling techniques; sweep netting with the obligatory head in the bag plus Pooter technique, butterfly netting, tree beating and, as a special treat, motorized suction sampling, in this instance a Vortis.

With aid of the PhD mentors and Hazel Leeper from the Linnaen Society, the students were soon cacthing interesting things (not all insects) and using the Pooters like experts.

Getting close up with the insects

I also let some of the students experience the joy of the Vortis, suitably ear-protected of course. All good things come to an end and it was then time to hit the microscopes, wash bottles, mounted pins and insect keys.

Getting stuck in – picture courtesy Amy Leedale

What’s this?

I was very impressed with how well the students did at getting specimens down to orders and families and have every confidence that there are a number of future entomologists among them. After the evening meal, Kate Harrison and Simon Hoggart from the BES Publications Team introduced the students to the tactics of paper writing and publishing which I think they found something of an eye-opener. The students, after a rapid descent on the bar, enjoyed a Pub Quiz whilst I relaxed with a glass of wine until it was dark enough for me to demonstrate the wonders of using fluorescent dust to track our solitary carabid beetle using my UV torch before heading off to bed.

Glow in the dark carabid beetle – the bright lights of Malham Tarn – photo courtesy of Eloise Wells

I was sorry to have to leave the next morning, it would have been great fun to have stayed the full week, but next year I do hope to be able to be there for at least two days and nights so that we can do pitfall trapping and light trapping and of course, have more fun with fluorescent insects.

I hope the students found the whole week inspirational and useful, I was certainly inspired by their obvious enjoyment and interest and will be surprised I if do not come across some of them professionally in the future.

Well done BES and congratulations to Karen and her team for providing such a great opportunity for the students. I am really looking forward to next year and being able to see great Yorkshire features like this in the sunshine 😉