The Birds and the Bees

Critical to conversation of wild bee populations is understanding how they use the landscape to navigate. GPS tags have been widely used to track the movements of larger animals but insects are not strong enough to carry these relatively heavy tags. We have developed a system to track bumblebees across a landscape using lightweight bluetooth tags. In this talk we will explain how it works, why we want to track bees and what we can find out about their behaviour.

Rachel is currently researching the use of metamaterials to develop novel antennas for tracking small animals, specifically bees. Bee pollination is crucial for the health of our ecosystems and the sustenance of human life. Rachel will how metamaterials, engineered materials with properties not found in nature, such as negative refraction, offer exciting possibilities in antenna design and offer new avenues for scientific exploration and technological advancements in animal tracking.

The profusion of animal colour - from birds to butterflies - is one of the most striking aspects of biodiversity. But is this diversity under threat as our environment changes? This talk will focus on the spectacular plumage colours of birds across the globe, examining how and why colours differ among different regions and how this diversity might be affected in a world shaped more and more by human impact.