Temporary Ponds

And now for something completely different! Ever since I first arrived at Brookes I have collaborated with a group of freshwater biologists, Ponds Conservation Trust, who are based at Brookes. I have helped them supervise a number of undergraduate project students in the freshwater ecology area. This has so far led to one major publication:

COLLINSON, N.H., BIGGS, J., CORFIELD, A., HODSON, M.J., WALKER, D., WHITFIELD, M. & WILLIAMS, P.J. (1995) Temporary and permanent ponds: an assessment of the effects of drying out on the conservation value of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities. Biological Conservation 74, 125-133.

The pond shown here was photographed in May 2001 in Southall, London, having recently been sampled for macroinvertebrates. In the last few years Pascale Nicolet has been conducting a major survey of temporary ponds in the UK. I was her second supervisor. Pascale successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on Temporary Ponds on February 3rd 2003. The first publication arising from this work has now been published:

NICOLET, P., BIGGS, J., FOX, G., HODSON, M.J., REYNOLDS, C., WHITFIELD, M. & WILLIAMS, P. (2004) The wetland plant and macroinvertebrate assemblages of temporary ponds in England and Wales. Biological Conservation 120, 261-278.