Tweet By Francesco Martini We are living in a biodiversity crisis, with many species shrinking in numbers and at risk of going extinct. To put a stop to, or at least slow down this seemingly inevitable fall into the abyss for many of the world’s species, one action that is considered effective is establishing protected areas.  “A protected area is a clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values.” IUCN Definition, 2008  ..read more

Tweet In December 2023 the discipline of Zoology in the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin were awarded a green certificate from My Green Lab after achieving a phenomenal score of 97%! This was a major effort thanks to a dedicated committee led by Emma King. My Green Lab Committee (from left to right): Ebru Talak Bastürkmen, Aoife Molloy, Prof Paula Murphy, Emma King, Niamh McCartan, Grace McNicholas, Simon Benson, Aedín McAdams, Clinton Haarlem, Alison Boyce, and Grace Aspell. What is My Green Lab? My Green Lab Certification is awarded by My Green Lab to encourage sustainabili ..read more

Tweet Figure 1: The grey wolf (Canis Lupus) We’ve all been there, trying to get some out of reach object only to dejectedly ask for the assistance of another. Turns out, this behavior has been with us for most of our lives. It is known that children as young as 12 months will start to point at certain objects that they desire but are, for obvious reasons, unable to obtain (Figure 2). This behaviour is known as imperative pointing and, as it turns out, you don’t even need to point to be able to do it. In fact, gaze alteration, the process of looking between the desired object and a specifi ..read more

Tweet We would like to say a big thank you and goodbye to the 2022/2023 editors Aedín McAdams and Luke Quill. Throughout the year they have provided a wide variety of posts including saying goodbye to Prof. Celia Holland and the annual 2023 Botany-Zoology Postgraduate Symposium. They were also responsible for the revival of the annual Photo Competition, which we will continue next year! We want to wish them both the best of luck and hopefully they will keep us updated with their works in future blog posts.  But now it’s time to introduce ourselves to you – hello, it’s Josua and ..read more

Tweet It’s been three years since we’ve had transition year students pass through the door of the Zoology building to take part in a week long work experience programme. A huge thank you to everyone who made this possible and to Prof. Nicola Marples for organising another successful ‘Zoology TY Week’. The Zoology TY Week is dedicated to exposing transition year students from around Ireland to what it is like to study Zoology in Trinity College Dublin, and to show them the opportunities that come with it. This year we had almost 100 applications, that was whittled down to 24 students, who were ..read more

Tweet By Ed Straw There’s a common perception among environmentalists that farmers are pretty fast and loose when it comes to environmental regulations. Farmers have to follow endless rules on when they can cut the hedges, where can’t they spread slurry and how to apply pesticides. If farmers are drowning in red tape, surely they can’t be following all these rules all of the time? There’s a particularly large burden of rules when it comes to pesticides. This makes a lot of sense as pesticides are potent chemicals, specifically engineered to be toxic to some kind of life form. When mis-used, p ..read more

Tweet After another year, the wait for the 2023 Postgraduate Symposium was finally over and this one most definitely lived up to its expectations! As always, these two days provided us with fascinating insight into the PhD projects across Botany and Zoology. The range of captivating topics really drove home how we are a school of explorers; with projects working on the microscopic scale right up to climate systems, from the colonisation of land to novel taxonomic discoveries and everything in between. It was a pleasure to sit back and enjoy the amazing work being done by our PhDs. The symposi ..read more

Tweet Here it is, the ever anticipated results of this year’s photo competition.  This year was one of the most successful yet, with 56 applications, highlighting the diverse array of work, hobbies, fungi, plants and animals encountered by you all. We feel very fortunate to have seen each application. We want to thank each and every one of you for your submissions. Every year, the competition to be the new image of the blog is fierce, and this year was no exception.  With 56 applications, we somehow had to create a short list. Thankfully for us, the wonderful Siobhan McDonald, an Iri ..read more

Tweet “Green future”, “Green initiatives”, “Green energy” All references to the color green are impossible to avoid if we want to preserve or improve the environment. It is clear that “going green” is in, but which shade of green should we look at? There is the ‘bright electric green’, commonly posed on renewable energy advertisements and infographics. There is also the ‘deep forest green’ often pledged in biodiversity conservation campaigns. However, the question is, can we generate an environmental plan that actually delivers an appealing blend of both ‘electric’ and ‘deep forest’ green?&n ..read more

Tweet As we welcome in the New Year, we want to take the time to bid farewell to Prof. Celia Holland who retired in October 2022 from the Zoology Department. I believe I speak for everyone in Zoology and Trinity who’ve had the great pleasure of meeting Celia, that she will be a huge loss to the department. She has acted as Head of School, Head of Discipline, Director of Research, and Chair of the School of Natural Sciences Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team to name a few.  Celia on fieldwork collecting specimens Celia started her teaching journey in the Zoology Department in 1985, following ..read more