Jean Secondi talks at the International Conference on Ecological Studies in Rennes, France

In the gloom of the conference room, Jean Secondi prepares to talk about invasive frogs in France. The project, which includes MeaseyLab PhD student Natasha Kruger (co-supervised by Secondi in a co-tutelle agreement with U. Lyon), aims to show control strategies for the invasive population of African clawed frogs in France. Hosted by the French Society of Ecology, this meeting has some really top names.

You can find the abstract book here and more about the meeting here. Don't forget to look out for past and present CIBers (hey Giovanni!). 

Jean Secondi, Giovanni Vimercati, Natasha Kruger, Julien Courant, John Measey, Anthony Herrel (2018) Evolutionary processes, connectivity and control strategies in Xenopus laevis. International Conference on Ecological Studies in Rennes, France (October 2018). 

Risk Assessment at the European Commission in Brussels

I was invited to attend the a group of risk assessors at the European Commission in Brussels. It was an interesting insight into the shadowy world of the commission (what I saw of it at the DG Environment Building) anyway. The African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, was one of ten species that the group was assessing. I had reviewed the assessment before going to Brussels, but the visit allowed me to interact with the group that made the assessment, and this led to some important modifications.

It was great to work with this dedicated group and listen to discussions on some other emerging invasive species in the EU including the evil variable squirrel that has already invaded parts of Italy, but is an increasingly popular pet. You may or may not know how much I dislike squirrels, but I was heartened to hear that they taste better than rabbit. 

Bullfrog diet shows widespread predation on small vertebrates of the Andaman Islands - published today

Regular readers of this blog will know that I visited the Andaman Islands in February 2018 (see blog entry here). During that visit, Nitya and I finished the manuscript on the diet of invasive Indian bullfrogs that are expanding their range in the area. We went into Port Blair to submit the manuscript to PeerJ. This took us much of the day as not only was the internet very very slow, but there were frequent power cuts that constantly interrupted the task.

The paper explores diet of invasive bullfrogs on the Andaman Islands. We found that bullfrogs ate most things, including many of the indigenous vertebrates on the islands.

Mohanty, N.P. & Measey, J. (2018) What’s for dinner? Diet and potential trophic impact of an invasive anuran Hoplobatrachus tigerinus on the Andaman archipelago. PeerJ   10.7717/peerj.5698

Workshop on communityecology and invasion ecology, Stellenbosch, September 19-21

A workshop organised by Guillaume Latombe, Cang Hui & Dave Richardson was held at Dornier Wine Estate, near Stellenbosch, from 19 to 21 September. It was surprisingly chilly inside the main house, but luckily we were allowed out for meals and to warm up in the sun.

We aimed to answer two fundamental questions: 

The workshop was a combination of keynotes and reflexions on these two questions, together with working groups working hard on common hypotheses from the two disciplines. 

Attendees included Jon Chase (iDiv, Germany), Franck Couchamp (CNRS, France), William Bond (SAEON/UCT, South Africa), Res Altwegg (UCT, South Africa), Guy Midgley (Stellenbosch, South Africa) and the usual smattering of CIB groupies. 

A blast from the past

Great to meet up with Patrick Lavelle, formerly of University of Paris VI (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) and Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD). Patrick headed up the UMR137 Laboratoire d'Ecologie des Sols Tropicaux (LEST). IRD/Université de Paris VI.

I spent 3 years in Patrick’s lab at IRD in Bondy, near Paris, and left to go to University of Antwerp in 2004.

Great to see him again after all these years. Patrick now lives in Columbia with his wife, Helena.