A talk to the Department of Zoology at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil

It was a pleasure to address an enthusiastic group of zoologists in their weekly seminar slot. My host, Prof Marcio Borges-Martins, was a post doc at PUCRS when I worked there in 2001. Now he runs a herpetology group at the university with lots of exciting projects. I think my presentation may have just tipped over the hour long allocated slot, but thanks to you all for sticking with it!

Talking to a bunch of Brazilians about South African amphibian diversity is tough, but I hope I convinced them that there's lots of interesting stuff going on at the CIB in Stellenbosch University.

Title: "South African frogs: invaders and invaded."

Setting up an array for aSCR in Silvermine

Reesher Kearns is doing her Honours project using data from aSCR arrays from 22 sites across the Cape peninsula. Today we went up to a site where some male Arthroleptella lightfooti had started calling in Silvermine to go through the motions. 

You can see some of what we got up to in the video below:

There's lots of preparation necessary before you set off, as well as once you're up there. A good walk for Star Wars day. May the 4th be with you too!

Marike defends her MSc thesis

It's another big day in the MeaseyLab as Marike Louw defends her MSc thesis:

Marike Louw has been with us since January 2016, and has made quite a splash in the lab. Marike worked extremely hard on a National Geographic funded project on aSCR. She trained many field assistants to set up acoustic arrays on the Cape peninsula. Marike won the CIB prize for the best MSc presentation at the ARM in 2016. In March 2017, Marike was runner up in a NRF science writing competition, and again in August 2017, she won a prize at the fynbos forum. She spent some of her prize money attending the BES meeting in Ghent, as well as presenting aSCR work in the ZSSA meeting in Pretoria. Marike attended our lab retreats (Kleinmond & Bonamanzi) and made a splash into the pool with her crazy synchronised swimming routines and appearing twice in the mannequin challenge. We've really enjoyed having you in the lab, and wish you all the best on your next mission to Marion Island!

From left to right, Carla, Damian celebrate with Marike & John

Magic March for thesis submission

A big congratulations to Mac and Marike for submitting their theses this March.

Mac’s PhD thesis “Evaluating the effects of changing global climate on amphibian functional groups of southern Africa: an ecophysiology modelling approach” uses performance, morphology, physiology and modelling to predict species distributions in southern Africa.

Marike’s MSc thesis “Acoustic Spatial Capture-Recapture (aSCR) and the Cryptic Cape Peninsula Moss Frog Arthroleptella lightfooti” uses the aSCR technique to determine population density with many acoustic arrays.

Well done to you both! Very fine pieces of work indeed.

Showing aSCR to the BES

Marike Louw spent her prize winning money (from the CIB ARM 2016) on attending the BES meeting in Ghent, Belgium. 

The meeting gave Marike a chance to display a poster on her MSc reseasrch, and meet people who were interested in the technique.

It was great to see the level of interest in aSCR is high, and the enthusiasm with which Marike explained the technique to the masses.