We are aiming to get behind the headlines, and to discover the challenges, the practicalities and the excitement of carrying out research and acting upon your results.
- Erica Bithell
Sitting in his room high up in one of the University of Cambridge’s zoology buildings, Dr Ed Turner holds a small bottle up to the light. Inside, preserved in alcohol, are insects collected in the rainforest of Sumatra nine months ago as one strand of a project to map the biodiversity of the region.
“In this one bottle are around 150 beetles from 15 different families,” says Dr Turner. “They are just a tiny fraction of the insects gathered over 12 months from more than 50 traps placed at our field sites in Sumatra. Once we’ve recorded and analysed the data these specimens represent, we will have a better understanding of how tropical ecosystems work and how variable tropical agriculture can be. That information will help agronomists in Indonesia to manage their plantations more sustainably with biodiversity in mind.”
Dr Turner, an ecologist whose specialism lies in the forest environments of the South East Asia, is one of five tutors who will be contributing to a pioneering science outreach course offered by the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley Hall, in January and February 2014.
Called ‘Cambridge science: behind the scenes’, the programme will introduce participants to five contrasting areas of the scientific research happening across the University of Cambridge. Each session will be given by a different expert and will explore the challenges faced by today’s researchers – from the study of genetic mapping to research into the development of the next generation of nanoscale structures.
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Image: Ed Turner carrying out field work in the forests of Sumatra
Credit: Ed Turner
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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