... furthering our knowledge, understanding and management of the interactions between humans and their social, biological and physical life-support systems

Welcome to the EGS Department

What's going on in our urban ecology group?

MSc student, Penelope Waller, chats to Rose Newton of Kew Gardens' Millennium Seedbank about her restoration field trials.

X-ray tests of seed from Salvia Africana.

Our urban ecology group have been busy. We have a number of graduate projects underway, and these range from exploring the ecological aspects of restoration in degraded urban sites to unpacking access and use of urban green space in the city. The postgraduate urban ecology class recently went on a field trip as part of their course. The purpose of the fieldtrip is to stimulate research ideas, which they then present to the class following which, on the basis of an election, they carry out one of the proposed projects. This collection of photographs here gives some insights to what they have been up to.

X-ray tests of seed from Salvia Africana (right) show the percentage viability, which can point to likely germination in restoration efforts. This information, collected as part of Penelope Waller's research project, is useful in guiding restoration ecologists to which species are good to use in restoration studies, and in highlighting shortfalls between viability and germination that need to be explained by other factors such as poor or incorrect pre-sowing treatments.

MSc Student, Oliver Cowan, explored the potential of existing seedbanks in the degraded Peninsula Shale Renosterveld for use in kick-starting restoration. He applied an off-site burn treatment to some of his soil samples to see if this aided germination of a wider range of indigenous species (below right).

To assist MSc student Penelope Waller in the time consuming task of seed collection for her restoration trials, we ran a seed collection training workshop, under the guidance of Carly Cowell from SANPARKS. Here two of the attendees test their skills in sourcing and bagging seed for cleaning, treatment, and sowing in the field trials.

Application of off-site burn treatment to soil samples by MSc Student, Oliver Cowan.

Stacy-Ann Michaels of the Edith Stephens Nature Reserve gives an animated description of some of the challenges of urban conservation adjacent to an informal settlement to our urban ecology class.

We hosted an exciting workshop of African urban ecologists to gather issues and views on urban ecology in Africa to inform the African Assessment component of the UN Habitat Cities and Biodiversity Outlook publication.

Blessing Mutiti (SANPARKS) and Robyn Dreyer, Honours student in EGS in 2012, weigh rodents trapped as part of a study to understand small mammal population dynamics in the degraded Peninsula Shale Renosterveld.