Riley did a fantastic job on the website, which I think you have all seen. We have persuaded Riley to keep working with the SPG project through the winter.
Nourridine Siewe, postdoctoral research associate, arrived in mid-August and has been busy getting settled in Kelowna and working on his PDE model for bumble bee movement, harvesting, and nest dynamics. Welcome Nourridine!
Sarah is close to submitting her first paper, and is also submitting a MITACS Globalink proposal to spend three months in England working with Matthias Becher (who developed the BEEScout, BEEHave, and BEESteward models for bumble bee movement and population dynamics in England) and Juliet Osborne (Matthias' supervisor, and researcher who has done a lot of harmonic radar tracking of bumble bees).
Noah Marshall, undergraduate at UBCO, volunteered in the Tyson lab during the summer and worked closely with Sarah and Warren to develop heat maps of the agricultural landscape with respect to pollination services. His work was excellent and it was wonderful to have had his help this summer. His work will inform Sarah's second paper (writing to start soon!).
Pau Capera Aragones arrived at the beginning of September to start his PhD in the Tyson lab. He will also be working on continuous-time, continuous-space modelling of bumble bee movement, in close collaboration with Nourridine. Welcome Pau!
Richard Kwafo has just arrived to start his PhD with Paul Galpern and Ralph Cartar. Richard comes to us with a BSc in Entomology & Wildlife from University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and an international MSc in Applied Ecology from University of East Anglia, UK (and a bunch of other institutions collaborating on the same degree). In terms of research critter, he's published on people, insects, and birds, and is now keen to wrangle bumble bees.
Sarah and Rebecca had an excellent skype meeting with Karina and Eric, introducing them to the SPG group website. They had some excellent suggestions, which will be implemented before the meeting with growers in November.