News
Soil Ecology Workshop
A soil ecology workshop was held on 6 July 2011 during the 17th Congress of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa, held at the University of the Free State from 3 – 6 July. The workshop was attended by taxonomists and other researchers concerned with soil biota. Presentations were made by a number of specialists working on various ecologically important soil dwellers. The message from this workshop was clear: the shortage of taxonomists in these groups is severe. A soil ecology research group was established in order to find measures to address this problem.
Louise Coetzee presented a talk “Mites in Soil” pointing out the ecological role of oribatid (soil) mites as well as the taxonomic status of Oribatida in South Africa. Dr Lizel Hugo-Coetzee presented a poster (co-authored by Dr Nico Avenant) “Soil mite (Acari: Oribatida) response to prescribed fire in a central South African grassland”.
Attendants at the inaugural meeting of the Soil Ecology Research Group (Louise Coetzee 2nd row, second from left; Lizel Hugo-Coetzee 2nd row, third from left).
International Congress of Acarology
Dr Lizel Hugo-Coetzee from the Acarology Department, National Museum, Bloemfontein, attended the 13th International Congress of Acarology from 23-27 August, 2010, in Recife, Brazil, where she reported on the effect of fire on soil mite communities in Free State grasslands.
The Congress was attended by 380 delegates from 41 countries. Other South Africans present at the Congress were Dr Eddie Ueckermann (Plant Protection Research Institute, Agricultural Research Council), Prof. Pieter Theron (School of Environmental Sciences & Development, North West University), Dr Louwrens Tiedt (Laboratory of Electron Microscopy, North West University) and Dr Jacob den Heyer (Department of Zoology & Entomology, University of the Free State.
