We are delighted to welcome back our monthly online talk series! The new series will run on the second Wednesday of the month at the new time of 16:00 – 17:00 (UK Time). Each session will be aligned with one of our seven scientific journals, so tune in to hear an in depth discussion on a specific field of entomology alongside key updates and new activities from the Society.

These talks are free for RES members, so join today! Please note, all attendees, including members, must register below to receive the link to attend the talk.

The Ecology and Conservation of Urban Insects
Cecilie Svenningsen & Felipe Walter

Wednesday 10 April
16:00 – 17:00 (BST)

As more and more people live in areas of high urban density and have limited contact with the natural world, we need to understand and emphasise the benefits provided by both ornamental and functional urban greenspaces. A critical component to the function of such greenspaces are their insects and the ecosystem services they provide. Now, more than ever, we need to explicitly build the body of research associated with the beneficial insects of city and peri-urban spaces. This session will highlight key research in this area from a recent Special Issue in RES journal Insect Conservation and Diversity on The Ecology and Conservation of Urban Insects.

We will welcome two authors from this special issue to speak live about their research, as well as hear short videos from additional authors. You will then have an opportunity to ask questions live. The session will be chaired by Special Issue Editor, C.M. (Tilly) Collins.

Cecilie Svenningsen
Natural History Museum of Denmark

Cecilie S. Svenningsen is a data administrator at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and an external researcher at the Natural History Museum of Denmark. During her PhD studies and Postdoctoral research, she combined citizen science and DNA metabarcoding to examine large-scale effects of land cover and land use on insect communities. As a data administrator, she works with biodiversity data publishers and users, with a focus on data standards, ecological and DNA-derived data. Her professional passions are data reusability and controlled vocabularies while her spare time is used on wildlife gardening and sci-fi.

You can read Cecilie’s Special Issue paper here.

Felipe Walter
Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Brazil

Felipe Walter Pereira is a PhD student at the Ecology and Evolution post-graduate program from Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Brazil, and has recently obtained his master’s degree in Entomology from Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR), Brazil. Felipe studies wild bees and has experience with communities of bees in urban environments, as well as geographic distribution of species. In his current research, his main interests are in the ecology, conservation, biogeography, and evolution of bees, particularly global diversity patterns, biodiversity shortfalls, and climate change effects on geographic distributions.  

You can read Felipe’s Special Issue paper here.