It is saterday 18th March 2017 and the Southampton Science and Engineering festival #sotsef is in full swing. In the past weeks, BioSci staff and students have prepared exhibitions, demonstrations and hands-on activities on circadian clocks, bacterial infections, evo-devo, DNA and brains to share with the science-loving general public.
One of the exhibitions is an artwork generated by Southampton sculptor Chris Cudlip in collaboration with BioSci researcher Prof Doncaster and colleagues in geography. This artwork, which contains diatoms in clay (a type of algea!),
interprets research conducted by a team of academics in the UK & China on how increased pollution in Chinese lakes leads to changes in biodiversity which acted as a signal of an impending ecosystem collapse (Doncaster et al 2016- click here for a link to their publication)
The sculpture beautifully shows how changes in biodiversity threatens collapse of an ecosystem– click here for more information on the artwork and to find out more about the science behind it click here.
The sculpture will feature in Southampton Science & Engineering Day, a riverside festival in Southampton later in the year, Winchester Science Festival, and Brighton Science Festival after the summer. It will eventually have a permanent place in Geography & Environment, but we hope to have it on display in B85 for some time as well.
Don’t miss it and do talk to the researcher to find our more about biodiversity and explore this poster for more information poster plinth 2 (1)