Passing on knowledge

Passing on knowledge

Whether in the lab, a church hall or in the field, it is essential for experts and practitioners to pass on what they know in an effective and positive way in order to engage and inform others.

For a very brief an hour and a half yesterday I gave a small workshop on macroinvertebrate identification and their use in biomonitoring at a conference in Porto. You can’t get a lot done in 90 minutes with students who have little or no experience of sorting and identifying live samples of inverts, but it is a great opportunity to pass on the enthusiasm and fascination that draws people like me (and you) to rivers, lakes and wetlands again and again.

I had collected material the day before, just before sunset from an almost pristine stream about 10 minutes by car from where I live. A special place where I often stop early morning to have a cup of tea before going on to the university, sometimes take my packed lunch and even occasionally sleep in the summer in my adapted van (check out the amdro website – if you have a small commercial van and feet as itchy as mine, this is one of the best investments you will ever make. No, I don't receive commission!). My boyfriend once spotted an otter at this spot early one morning and although I’ve since found spraints on the rocks, I haven’t yet seen an otter. Sweeping a hand-net from a riffle section into crystalline pool scoured clean by winter spates, I pulled out magnificent stonefly larvae (Perlodidae), cased and uncased caddis larvae, mayfly nymphs (Heptageniidae) and humungous, bullying Odonata nymphs; water boatmen (Notonetca) scurried over everything in the collecting jar. All of these animals had overwintered and were in their last, impressive instar, now awaiting the onset of spring to metamorphose, emerge and reproduce. I still get such a thrill from looking at these animals and being by the riverside.

Only a handful of students attended the workshop – 3 of the 6 that registered didn’t turn up. I guess they were still sleeping off a Friday night in Porto - I know I have in the past! However Leonor, Sara and Francisco arrived and started enthusiastically sorting through the live samples. Initial apprehension of “creepy crawlies” rapidly turned to curiosity at the sheer variety of animals before them, so wonderfully adapted to the habitats I had rudely pulled them from. Unfortunately, the Plecoptera had all died overnight, but the rest of the inverts were managing to stand up to being poked at and placed under microscopes. We went over identification keys together and it was rewarding to see the students starting to recognise characteristics, albeit over a very short period of time.

The time passed quickly and all too soon it was time to pack up the material and go our separate ways. After spending a thoroughly pleasant Saturday night in Porto, this morning I made my way back to the stream I had collected the inverts from two days earlier and released them back into their habitat. This is one of the advantages of collecting and studying exuviae (the cast skin of macroinvertebrates; I’m very keen on the use of chironomid pupal exuviae in biomonitoring) - no animals are killed when sampling.