The ARC Trust & BHS Scientific Meeting

Bournemouth

5th December 2010

The meeting was opened by Professor Trevor Beebee who welcomed people to the meeting. He handed over to Dr Chris Gleed Owen as the chair of the morning session.  Liam Russell who has been studying the UK's Sand Lizards as part of his PhD - Liam explained more about the population genetics of the sand lizards found in Dorset. He outlined the procedures involved in the genetic studies which have been completed so far and where this will be taking him in the future. Following on from this talk Katy Upton described her research into the diversity of frogs in Peru an interesting talk which came from her undergraduate research project.

Back to the UK for the third talk which was from Darryn Nash who has been studying an atypical population of grass snakes in the Aire valley - again this study relied on the genetics of these snakes to determine where they had come from. The results indicated an Eastern Romania origin. Darryn outlined the future work for the study including looking into the possible impact of these introduced species on native grass snakes in this area of Yorkshire.

Following the coffee break Freya Smith gave an update on the 'The epidemiology of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in the UK' the disease which is very much impacting on amphibians over the world and has reached the UK's shores. Freya went over the results of the 2008 amphibian swab and discussed the results, finishing on what will be happening in 2011 for the next national Chytrid survey. Vicky Ogilvy gave a talk on captive amphibians and the role caroteniods have in making sure frogs were healthy in captive breeding programmes through controlled experiments in the lab and in the field - just goes to show that the mantra of '5 a day' also works in other animals and not just humans.

Following this talk and before lunch Professor Richard Griffiths the mid morning chair made two announcements relating to the World Congress of Herpetology in Vancouver, Canada in August 2012 and a project being organised by DICE relating to standard survey protocols for amphibians and reptiles in the UK.

Following Lunch John Baker gave an update on the Pool frog reintroduction project - outlining a brief overview of the background to the project and going through the data which has been collated on the population. The next steps are still to be decided but it look like the reintroduction is progressing well. The next speaker was Robert Heathcote who has been studying European Wall Lizards in the UK - an example of the study of evolution in real time from an introduction of an alien species. Peter Minting described his work on the impact of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis on the natterjack toads in Cumbria. The last talk was away from the cold climes of the UK and into the phylogeny and historical biogeography of the genus Bitis - the vipers found in Africa and was given by Axel Barlow from Bangor University.