Nov 2016: The inaugural meeting of the Irish Ecological Association, Sligo, 24–26th November 2016


The IEA conference highlighted the huge diversity of ecological research in Ireland, including themes on farmland biodiversity, food webs and community ecology, population dynamics of threatened and invasive species, parasite ecology, evolution and macroecology, population genetics, phylogenetics and taxonomy, genetic monitoring, landscape ecology and disturbance ecology. Keep reading...

I was elected IEA Meetings Officer at the AGM. Get in touch if you want to nominate your institution as a potential venue for our next meeting (early to mid 2018).

To find out more about ecology in Ireland, read the BES Virtual Issue: Ecology and Evolution in Ireland.

Nov 2016: George Olah spent years collecting macaw DNA in south-eastern Peru and we used landscape data from the Carnegie Airborne Observatory to analyse spatial patterns of gene flow. We now know that macaws have relatively few natural barriers to dispersal, except very high mountain ranges.

Our new paper provides data about natural gene flow that will serve as a baseline for monitoring and preserving connectivity across the Amazon.

Olah G, Smith AL, Asner GP, Brightsmith DJ, Heinsohn RG, Peakall R (2016). Exploring dispersal barriers using landscape genetic resistance modelling in scarlet macaws of the Peruvian Amazon. Landscape Ecology DOI: 10.1007/s10980-016-0457-8. Read online.

Check out the 3-minute video documentary about this work: