News
Latest News
- Quercus first to GPS tag lagomorphs Animal rescue centres release large numbers of captive-bred, rehabilitated or translocated a... [more]
- Quercus wins "National Frog Survey of Ireland" contract Quercus won the National Frog Survey of Ireland 2010/11 contract under competitive tender... [more]
Annual Public Lectures
One of the main aims of Quercus and a core objective of the Natural Heritage Research Partnership (NHRP) is to encourage the dissemination of scientific research not only to decision makers and practitioners but to the general public. The ‘NHRP Annual Lecture in association with Quercus’ is now a well established series. During the first quarter of each year an internationally renowned academic is invited to give a public talk to inspire students, academics and NIEA staff in the field of biodiversity and conservation science. Each year aims to tackle a different topic.
Professor Graeme Hays
Institute for Environmental Sustainability, Swansea University
"Leatherback turtles in northern European waters: current patterns and propects
with climate change"
Graeme is a leading expert in the rapidly developing field of biotelemetry. He has developed innovative and sophisticated methods to track individuals to examine migration routes and dispersal patterns. He is particularly interested in critically endangered leatherback turtles; an exotic species spotted every year around the UK and Ireland. Graeme does not consider these animals to be passing vagrants but regular visitors to our shores and uses satellite tracking to explore the environmental conditions that leatherbacks prefer.
Professor Oliver Rackham (2008)
Master of Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge
"Threats to woodlands; past, present and future"
Oliver is one of the leading ecological botanists in Britain and an acknowledged authority on the British countryside, especially with respect to trees, woodlands and pastures. He has published many influential books including ' Trees and woodland in the British landscape: the complete history of Britain's trees, woods & hedgerows’ (2001), ‘The Illustrated History Of The Countryside’ (2003) and ‘Woodlands’ (2006) . In 1998 he was awarded the OBE for "services to Nature Conservation" and in 2006 he was appointed Honorary Professor of Historical Ecology in the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge.
Professor Daniel Simberloff (2007)
Nancy Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Studies University of Tennessee
"Invasive species; what comes next?"
Daniel is the Director of the Institute for Biological Invasions and one of the world’s leading ecologists in the field of invasion ecology. He co-authored of the theory of ‘Island biogeography’ with Edward O. Wilson and Robert H. MacArthur. His work includes the theoretical susceptibility of ecosystems to invasion from exotic species, the potential interactions between invasive and native species and the phenomena of 'invasional meltdown'. He has served on the board of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and published multiple books and more than 350 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He is a past president of the American Society of Naturalists.
Professor David Macdonald (2006)
Director of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University
"A brush with foxes and other carnivore tales"
David is Chairman of the IUCN SSC Canid Specialist Group, Vice-President of the RSPCA and the Wildlife Trusts and is on the Councils of the Zoological Society of London and English Nature. He has a long and distinguished record as a conservation biologist, particularly in the area of mammalian ecology and conservation. He has published several hundred scientific papers, edited several volumes of scientific proceedings, authored several field guides and was editor of the landmark Encyclopedia of Mammals. WildCRU, the research unit he founded in 1986 has grown to be one of the world's leading centres for conservation science.
Professor Bill Sutherland (2005)
Miriam Rothschild Professor in Conservation Biology, University of East Anglia
"Predicting the impacts of environmental change"
Bill Sutherland is a population biologist with wide interests in applying ecological knowledge to policy questions such as the impact of GM crops, human disturbance and global warming. He set up the website www.conservationevidence.com to collate knowledge relevant to conservation practitioners. He is the author of ‘From Individual Behaviour to Population Ecology’ and ‘The Conservation Handbook’. He edited ‘Managing Habitats for Conservation’, ‘Behaviour and Conservation’, ‘Conservation Science and Action’, ‘Ecological Census Techniques’ and ‘Bird Ecology and Conservation’.
