Meeting Reports

Thames Valley Branch AGM Lecture

18^th October 2011

“Biological Control: a risky business?”

Presented by Professor Rosie Hails, Dr. Helen Roy & Dr. Helen Hesketh, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

Professor Hails gave a brief introduction to the subject of the opportunities, constraints and risks for biocontrol and how introductions for biological control are currently regulated in the UK.  She discussed the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment that was published in 2004, which was the first global study on the state of the natural environment and the benefits it gives to society in terms of ecosystem services. She mentioned that the other UK activities included the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) international project, on valuing the natural environment, and the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA), the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment in terms of the benefits it provides to society and continuing economic prosperity. 

Dr Roy discussed biological control agents.  She stated that there are a few cases in which the introduced natural enemy has had far-reaching, unacceptable impacts on biodiversity and so has been deemed an invasive alien species.  The harlequin ladybird is the only such example in Britain.  Although not intentionally introduced to this country, the harlequin ladybird was first recorded in Britain in 2004 and has subsequently spread rapidly across the country.  The impacts of this invader on native species are of considerable concern. She added that she coordinates the UK Ladybird Survey (http://www.ladybird-survey.org/) which was the first online survey for recording of wildlife sightings and urged members to assist in recording sightings of ladybirds on-line, particularly of the harlequin species.  Dr Roy also highlighted the BBC breathing spaces ladybird parasite survey that she is involved with http://www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces/ladybird-parasites/.

Dr Hesketh then talked about conservation biological control, which doesn’t require the introduction of natural enemies but relies on enhancing natural enemies already present by modifying existing management practices or the environment.  Methods to achieve this include improving natural enemy dissemination, such as parasitoid wasps, predatory beetles and spiders.  She discussed the use of alternative hosts as a reservoir and provision of refuges for the natural enemies, such as beetle banks and wildflower strips.  The wildflower strips also provide an alternative and supplementary food source for the natural enemies.  She concluded that considering the wider natural enemy community at a landscape level will be critical to the success of developing this strategy for the future.

Professor Hails then provided more information on the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) which was published in June.  Running alongside the NEA is the Valuing Nature Network (VNN) which is an interdisciplinary network for valuing biodiversity, ecosystem services and natural resource use.  The network exists to help scientists provide evidence to inform policy making decisions at higher levels affecting the public and private sector.

Overall, the speakers provided a unique insight into the research being undertaken into   biological controls and conservative controls.  It was very helpful to have an overview of how that research fits in with policy decisions and the different levels of organisational responsibility involved. 

Reported by Dr Kerry A Broom

Sunday June 26^th Visit and Guided Tour of Hughenden Manor Gardens, High Wycombe

Members and guests of the Thames Valley Branch were treated to a rare insight into the historical, architectural, political and gardening background of Hughenden Manor in Buckinghamshire. About twenty of us gathered on a sunny Sunday in June at the former home of Benjamin Disraeli, FRS, the 1^st Earl of Beaconsfield and one of Queen Victoria’s Prime Ministers.

Head Gardener, Frank Parge explained how Disraeli’s wife, a rich widow named Mary Anne Lewis who was 12 years older than Benjamin, had defied a convention of the time by insisting on establishing a spectacular collection of conifers in front of the house. Conifers were much loved by Disraeli, so the driveway saw a display of the best. These are being selectively replaced as they age in order to maintain the original spectacle.

During an extensive tour of the formal gardens of the 1,500 acre estate Interested visitors also learned how to create and keep magnificent lavenders, the ideal mix to use as a pleasing low maintenance lawn, suitable ingredients for bedding soil, how to minimise watering and how the old stone statues are best preserved against the ravages of winter.

We also learned to appreciate the need, not often encountered by amateur gardeners, of planning to preserve the views over the Chiltern Hills, the importance of creating different formal display beds every year and the value of constructing and using great underground water-storage tanks to trap and supply rainwater. Mr Parge, as well as being a wonderful gardener experienced at re-invigorating failing gardens, is a trained engineer.

Hughenden Manor has a delightful walled vegetable garden with plots managed by local volunteers, students from schools, researchers from local colleges and the very young – the gardeners of the future. The National Trust shop and restaurant were added delights, and the manor house was proved to be a fascinating visit for those who stayed after lunch. Our branch expressed its sincere thanks to Mr. Parge for a fascinating tour of the garden and for giving us far more of his valuable time than we expected.

Reported by Tessa Parkes & Michael New

14 October 2010

AGM Lecture:  “Organic food & farming: Global saviour or a case of the Emperor’s new clothes?”

by Dr David Hughes

It’s not always easy to attract a large audience to branch events especially when they include the AGM. Perhaps for the 60 attendees, the lecture title “Organic food & farming: Global saviour or a case of the Emperor’s new clothes?” was sufficiently provocative to provoke their interest. Certainly it was good to see so many new faces including a group of students from a local college. Alternatively, it may just have been our speaker Dr David Hughes of crop protection giant Syngenta, who proved to be a thoroughly engaging and knowledgeable speaker. Dr Hughes confessed from the start that unsurprisingly he comes to the debate with a particular stance. Despite this, his talk was extremely well balanced, in many cases using references from the organic lobby itself and then examining them to see if they stand scrutiny.

Beginning with the fact that organic food tends to cost more and showing, that although some of this cost can be attributed to the increased cost of production, much of it is due to the increased profits made by retailers.

It may sound like a cliché but scientists appreciate that it is ‘the dose alone that makes a thing a poison’. So, once the toxicity of the world’s top 50 selling pesticides was described, relative to substances we are happy to imbibe in quantity on a regular basis such as caffeine, there was a ripple of astonishment from some in the audience.

The environment and sustainability is an area where organic proponents feel they can take the high ground, but the number of studies that actually show a clear benefit of organic production compared with conventional is really quite small. Furthermore, these are also offset by other studies that show conventional farming has the advantage whilst others show no real difference. Once productivity is brought in, and it was argued that satisfying demand is an important part of the sustainability equation, then the balance was shown to swing heavily in favour of conventional farming. Yields in the UK of staple food crops such as cereals and potatoes have doubled over the last 50 years and even a Soil Association commissioned report suggests that a wholly organic system would produce only 60% of current cereal yield

Finally, whilst nutrition can be objectively tested and finds there is little evidence for a difference between conventional and organic production, taste is much more subjective. Here was a classic example of how much we as the public may be told but how often it doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.

As expected, a lively session of questions and answers followed but it was good to see such an issue being discussed based on the science rather than opinion. It was also refreshing to know that there are still those like Dr Hughes willing to put their heads above the parapet and not let the organic movement have it all their own way.

Reported by Antony Straszewski

23 March 2010

Mini-Symposium held at the University of Reading, Harborne Building. 

FERMENTATION TECHNOLOGY: From Health Care to Climate Change 

The Thames Valley Branch welcomed visitors from the Bedfordshire, Essex and Hertfordshire Branch and the Western Branch on Tuesday 23 March 2010 to an evening symposium addressed by 3 local speakers on the application of fermentation technology to composting in the recycling of waste and to the production of biofuels and antibiotics.  For this purpose, the term ‘fermentation’ was used in the context of processes involving the mass culture of micro-organisms. 

Ella Clarke, Waste Minimisation Manager at Re3 Ltd spoke about arrangements for the collection and composting of garden waste conducted by the Re3 partnership. The partnership was set up in 1999 between Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham Borough Councils and WRG (Waste Recycling Group) to increase the recycling and composting of waste thereby minimising the amount sent to landfill.  Green waste collected at the kerbside and from the Household Waste Recycling Centre is composted at a local facility on a commercial scale.  The waste is arranged in ‘windrows’, long rows of the material, triangular in section, that provide the conditions necessary for composting to take place, principally good aeration and high temperature. The result is a high quality product which is sold to landscapers and farmers.  Of the total amount of waste collected in 2008-2009, 12% was composted, a figure that has increased towards 14% in the current year.  Various developments of this type and others involving the anaerobic treatment of e.g. food waste from supermarkets, are occurring throughout the country, driven by the UK government’s response to the EU Landfill Directive.  Look out for the annual Compost Awareness Week during 2-8 May. 

Dr Edward Green, Founder and Chief Technical Officer, Green Biologics Ltd, Abingdon introduced the approach taken by his company to the production of biofuels, one of the hottest topics in contemporary discussions of energy and climate change that generates considerable confusion and strongly held viewpoints. ‘Biofuels’ is commonly used as an umbrella term to cover biodiesel, produced by chemical processing of a variety of vegetable oils and animal fats, and bioethanol, involving the action of enzymes and fermentation on starchy or sugar-rich crops. Green Biologics Ltd was established in 2003 to develop advances in the underlying technologies that will lead to processes that are more sustainable and environmentally friendly.  The company develops advanced technologies that utilise agricultural waste residues and dedicated energy crops (biomass) thereby reducing feedstock and processing costs. There is a particular focus on the production of biobutanol, a chemically superior fuel to ethanol with a high energy yield, low vapour pressure and ease of storage and transportation through pipelines.  Rapid hydrolysis of biomass by thermophilic micro-organisms releases sugars that are then fermented to butanol by microbial strains that have been developed using genetic engineering.   The company has interests abroad including plant in China that produces butanol by a continuous fermentation process.  

Dr John Grainger, Visiting Research Fellow in the University of Reading, traced the application of fermentation technology to penicillin production from the small scale production processes at the outcome of the Second World War in the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University to the production of amounts large enough to be used in the field of battle. The quantities of penicillin filtrate needed by Howard Florey’s group at Oxford for their development work were provided from shallow layers of culture grown in an array of 1 litre vessels. Much larger quantities were soon needed for a large clinical trial but the pressures of war prevailed against their provision in the UK.  An historic visit to the USA by Florey and Norman Heatley led to the application of deep culture fermentation technology such as used in brewing but with the added challenge of providing aeration and mixing.  Other essential aspects that required attention to optimise process performance and potency of the product included strain selection, nutrient content and pH value of the culture medium, temperature and length of incubation, extraction of the final product, and quality assurance.  These features still form the bedrock of fermentation technology today as exemplified by the previous speaker in connexion with the production of butanol.

Reported by John Grainger

National Science and Engineering Week 12-21 March 2010

Biology from the inside

The Thames Valley Branch contributed to NSEW through a collaborative event with Leighton Park School, Reading in an afternoon of talks on ‘Biology from the inside’.  The school provided the venue and invited other schools, and Branch Committee member John Grainger arranged the programme.  The audience of well over 100 was made up of students from Years 9 and 10 (ages 13-15), a stage at which many have not yet made up their minds about science.  The programme of 3 talks from members of the University of Reading covered animals, microbes and DNA technology. An intended talk on plants did not take place because the speaker had to withdraw at short notice because of illness.

The talk by Becky Thomas, a research student in the Centre of Wildlife Assessment and Conservation, School of Biological Sciences, entitled ‘Look what the cat’s brought in’, dealt with the purpose and methods of her research on predation by cats on birds and small mammals.  John Grainger, Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences, took along a shopping basket of products and exhibits from which he drew to illustrate his theme that ’Some microbes are on our side’.   The question ‘DNA technology: how do they do that?’ was addressed by John Schollar, Co-Director, National Centre for Biotechnology Education, who used a variety of materials and exhibits and pieces of equipment to show how family relations and crime scenes are investigated.

There was no shortage of questions from a lively and appreciative audience who went away with a greatly enhanced appreciation of biology beyond the curriculum.  The students also had an insight into the immense range of careers in biology by the speakers sharing their experiences and from copies of the contents page of the SB publication Where you can go with biology.  

The Branch Committee is grateful to Leighton Park School for being host to the event and to Sally Pearce, a teacher at the school, for making the local arrangements.

Reported by John Grainger

Thames Valley Branch AGM Lecture 2009

Governments need not fund science

The Thames Valley Branch continued with its policy of inviting a particularly prestigious speaker to give the Annual General Meeting Lecture.  On this occasion the Branch was privileged to hear Dr Terence Kealey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham speak on the topic ‘Governments need not fund science’.  The presentation drew on Dr Kealey’s recent book Sex, Science and Profits in which he strongly challenges the belief that without government finance science would go unfunded. He presented a wide range of data in support of his view, with the audience accepting his invitation to engage in what developed into a lively interactive presentation.

An initial graphic showed that the rate growth in the economy of over the past 200 years was unaffected by the advent of government funding of science introduced for military purposes in 1913 (Britain) and 1940 (USA).   Moreover, the economies of countries in which science received generous government funding in the 19^th century (France and Germany) and 20^th century (USSR, e.g. Sputnik, and India) did not advance to the levels of the then two wealthiest countries (UK and USA).  The observation that government funding of R&D has had no beneficial effects on the economy is supported by the report The Sources of Economic Growth in OECD Countries published in 2003.

The speaker then addressed some ‘given truths’ relating to government funding of science, presenting evidence of their mythical basis. For example, the belief that pure science must be funded by government so that applied science can develop and thereby lead to economic growth was challenged by a view of economists that 97% of new technology is derived from old technology thereby reflecting the contribution that industry makes to developments.  As regards the supposed danger of industrial discoveries being stolen, the practice is rendered unattractive by the high costs of copying technology taken from a competitor.   Also, contrary to the general belief that companies do not discuss research with each other, about a quarter of innovation is estimated to be derived from shared knowledge given in the belief that such exchanges are of mutual benefit in the long term.  Attention was also drawn to the counter-cyclical manner in which industrial support for R&D increases in times of economic recession.   

Dr Kealey developed his argument further through specific historical examples of key advances that had occurred without government funding, some given by himself and others suggested by members of the audience. Included were references to air flight (Wright, Zeppelin), space technology (Goddard Laboratory), radio astronomy (Bell Laboratories), pharmaceuticals (Wellcome) and DNA (Rockefeller Foundation), and to the Royal Society which was privately funded until only relatively recently.

Finally, it was argued that not only is government funding not needed, but it has had detrimental effects by crowding out private industrial research (e.g. Carnegie ceased funding research in the USA when government funding rose, a trend only recently reversed by Bill Gates) and attracting research staff from industry with a consequent reduction in salaries, conditions of work and the social standing of scientists.

Reported by John Grainger