Hidden Life: From Elephants to Microbes

Elephants are intelligent, social animals, but how do we know if they are thriving in captivity? This talk explores how researchers developed a behaviour-based tool, now available as a free app used worldwide, to track elephant wellbeing and improve care. Learn how studying elephant behaviour is helping create better environments and improving welfare for elephants across the globe.

The ocean plays a vital role in Earth’s systems, shaping circulation, ecosystems, and coastal development, yet much of the seafloor remains unmapped, especially around Africa. This talk explores how scientists map the ocean floor using marine geoscience techniques. Focusing on offshore Lagos, Nigeria, the research uses Multibeam Echosounder (MBES) technology, which uses sound rather than light to create detailed 3D maps of underwater terrain and identify different seafloor materials.

Could a germ control your mind? How do microbes let trees talk? Where do you end and your microbiome begin? All creatures, great and small, share invisible connections to the microscopic world that shape the world around us, from the smallest algae to our own bodies. Join us as we journey through the microbial connections that support life as we know it, and ask: are we really ourselves, or are we just part of the microbiome soup of the universe?

Spiders rarely make conservation headlines, but two British species are at the centre of some genuinely urgent work. This talk presents PhD research on Dolomedes plantarius and Thanatus formicinus, covering habitat surveys and population monitoring, captive breeding observations, and feasibility assessments for translocation. Accessible to anyone with an interest in wildlife conservation, it covers what we know, what we're finding out, and what the next few years of research might mean for the future of both species in Britain.