New(t) beginnings

New beginnings

This Autumn I moved to Devon to begin a new and very exciting challenge: a PhD. The project is funded by NERC and is part of a new Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) called ARIES. The DTP is made up of 5 universities and 9 research centres and is an amazing opportunity to learn a whole array of new skills to equip myself in the world of science.

For the next 3-4 years I'll be quantifying the impact of a non-native newts on native amphibians in the UK. I'm interested in determining if there are individual, population and community-level impacts, what the mechanisms of impact are and how they might interact with other threats like disease and climate change. Ultimately I'd like to determine whether introduced newts are a conservation issue, and if so, what practitioners can do to help alleviate the impacts.

A partnership project

I'm primarily based at the University of Plymouth (UoP) but my research is in partnership with ZSL Institute of Zoology and Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Trust (ARC). I feel very lucky to have an AMAZING supervisory team led primarily by Dr Rob Puschendorf (UoP) alongside Dr Richard Billington (UoP), Dr Manuela Truebano (UoP), Prof Trent Garner (ZSL), Dr John Ewen (ZSL), Dr Stephen Price and Dr John Wilkinson (ARC Trust).

What's happened so far?

Back in the Summer TEAM NEWT headed to deepest darkest Wales to check out a field site near Aberystwyth. Here lays a network of garden and farmland ponds in which two species of newt, not native to the area, have been introduced alongside the native palmate newts. We met with Pete and Mark from ARC Trust, who are running a 4 year HLF funded project across Wales called Connecting the Dragons. They had previously coordinated survey work in the area and kindly offered to show us around (myself, Rob and Rich were absolutely clueless to our surroundings as we sat in the back of the windowless ARC Trust van!)

TEAM NEWT ASSEMBLE! From left to right: Mark Barber (ARC Trust), Pete Hill (ARC Trust), John Wilkinson (ARC Trust), Rich Billington (UoP), Me! Photo by Rob Puschendorf (UoP)

That evening we trundled around with old lemonade bottles and bamboo canes on a mission: to set bottle traps in two large ponds. Bottle trapping is a standard survey method and is incredibly cheap and easy. It's amazing how effective it is - newts just love to explore!

Morning came and we weren't disappointed by our bounty. Alpine, smooth and palmate newts were waiting patiently to be released, alongside some little froggos going through metamorphosis. Interestingly, John explained that smooth newts don't occur in the area naturally and proposed that they had been introduced to the region at the same time as the alpines. Smooth newts are a UK native, but aren't found naturally across most of Wales. Alpine newts are found in central mainland Europe but have become established in a growing number of locations outside of their natural range, including the UK. We spent some time admiring our catch and commenting on how beautiful the non-native alpine newts really are - it's not hard to see why the species is popular in the pet trade.

What next?

Since this trip I've been burying my head in invasion science literature. It's clear that there are anecdotal impacts of non-native newts like alpines, but that's all they are at the moment - anecdotes. This provides a brilliant opportunity for me to develop a project that addresses the issues I'm most interested in. So, for now, it's time to keep my head buried in those papers!

Stay tuned!