Jordan has just returned from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic where he gave a seminar and visited Stano Pekár’s Terrestrial Invertebrate Research Group. It was an excellent and inspiring trip filled with brilliant science, fantastic conversations and many beautiful castles (and even some exceptional Czech beer)!
Jordan got to visit Lednice park, where various castles and pavilions can be found representing a diversity of architectural styles, and an exceptional array of birds and insects. Stano was also returning several Micaria sociabilis spiders to the oak trees from which they were collected, which were great to see at work! Jordan was also taken to the pome orchards that Stano and his group use for their spider biocontrol experiments (and even got to try an apple fresh off the tree)!
Stano took Jordan on a necessary pilgrimage to the nearby Mendel Museum of Masaryk University, which celebrates the life and work of Gregor Mendel, who paved the way for the field of genetics through his famous plant hybridisation experiments. Within the grounds where those experiments took place, there were many displays related to Mendel’s life, alongside activities based on the principles of genetics that emerged as a result of his work. There were even Illumina flow cells, a nanopore sequencer and several other pieces of molecular biology equipment, demonstrating how these discoveries paved the way for many of the techniques we use today in molecular biology!
Jordan really enjoyed presenting some of the recent research to come out of FERG, particularly focused on our paper establishing the concept of nutritional networks from earlier this year. The conversations that followed provided plenty of food for thought, some excellent new directions and great opportunities to collaborate. Jordan is looking forward to continuing to work with Stano and his group going forward (especially following the paper on biocontrol across the annual cycle they co-authored earlier this year), with endless exciting ideas emerging from this trip. With plenty of opportunity for crossover between FERG and the Terrestrial Invertebrate Research Group, there will certainly be more trips to Masaryk University in the future!
Foraging Ecology Research Group 