In the build up to world fish migration day, we recently publicized that here at the FIRE lab, we would discuss and showcase different migratory tactics of various freshwater species. Within aquatic environments like rivers, lakes and ponds, fauna migrate in a multitude of ways across different scales, from individual meters to hundreds of kilometres. […]
Professor Geoff Petts – an inspiring river scientist
The blog post this week pays tribute to the career of Professor Geoff Petts, an inspiring river scientist who sadly passed away in August 2018. Although I never worked with Professor Petts, this piece highlights recent research, reviews and reflections published to acknowledge his significant contribution to the field, before describing how his research has […]
From Swansea to Solihull
Happy Friday readers! Yesterday, I swapped my usual routine of researching freshwater invertebrates, to teaching them to primary school children this week. For this, I visited Sharmans Cross Junior School (Solihull, West Midlands), who hosted a water day for their year 5 group (ages 9-10) so that the students could learn about how our precious […]
Can cameras improve the monitoring of freshwater systems?
Hello everyone! My name is Loren Gittings and I am an MSc student at Swansea University currently undertaking my dissertation within the FIRE lab team. I am very excited to have the opportunity to share details of my MSc project with you all. My project explores how underwater cameras can be used to quantify the […]
How culverts transform rivers
In an earlier blog post, I wrote about how the River Tawe harbours a range of flora and fauna despite a long history of neglect and strain inflicted by human activities. While changes in the management of rivers has improved ecological conditions across the catchment, ecosystems supported within the Tawe are still threatened by different […]
How can you model ecological trends across entire stream networks?
Happy Friday readers! This week’s blog post describes a workshop that I attended recently in Idaho, USA on spatially mapping environmental and ecological responses across entire stream networks. A key part of our studies at FIRE lab are to examine the connectivity of waterbodies and how river fragmentation influences instream biota. The Spatial-Stream-Network (SSN) Models […]
#FishInThePost Tench
Earlier today we tweeted our #FishInThePost question asking ‘the mucus of which fish species has been historically used and boiled by human for medicinal purposes?’. The answer we were looking for was Tench (Tinca tinca), so well done to @DaniRabaiotto for correctly identifying our fish of the week first. Thanks also to @GarethDDaviesEA and @flyfishypete […]
