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Providing environmental enrichment (EE) aims to allow animals to gain positive experiences by engaging in and completing rewarding behaviours. However uncertainties exist surrounding EE use for farmed species including how to assess use of EE in practice and whether EE has other benefits such as promoting greater resilience including decreasing disease susceptibility. This project seeks to address these uncertainties. Engaging with stakeholders and using welfare assessment tools, such as qualitative behavioural assessment (an animal-centric welfare indicator) we are determining levels and
We are delivering a comprehensive body of research that integrates cutting-edge mapping, artificial intelligence, genomics, experimental, and modelling techniques to quantify the abundance, diversity, and spatiotemporal dynamics of key Scottish crop pests and pathogens, as well as the ecology of pest and pathogen-host-environment-management interactions and potential impacts of climate change.
The Tarland Burn Catchment (~70 km 2) has been studied since the year 2000 making it one of the longest running comprehensive catchment management case studies in the UK. Critically there has been core funding support through cycles of Scottish Government strategic research programmes in turn, enabling integration with UK and European projects. As, the uppermost tributary of the River Dee, (NE Scotland) and under intensive land management, the Tarland Catchment has several pressures associated with diffuse pollution, alteration of river morphology, flood risk and a rural community with a high
Biodiversity has never been under more pressure, with over a million species – around a quarter of the world’s mammals, one in seven birds and 40 percent of amphibians and plants – currently threatened with extinction. Land-use change, direct exploitation and climate change are the leading causes of what’s been dubbed the ‘sixth mass extinction event’ in the Earth’s history. This makes the upcoming fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (known more succinctly as COP15) a crucial meeting, at which a new Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework must
The global food system is thought to account for around one third of global greenhouse emissions which contribute to climate change. It is estimated that food production, which includes growing, transport and processing, contributes to 15-30% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the UK. In 2020 the UK imported 46% of the food consumed, specifically with 84% of fresh fruit and 46% vegetables being imported from outside the UK. This food system is environmentally unstainable and poses a threat to national food security. Furthermore, this unequitable food system creates damage at a societal
The 2023 British Society for Animal Science Conference focus is Animal Science: Delivering for all our Needs. #BSAS2023 More details about the conference, including the draft programme, can be found here. SEFARI will sponsor, organise and host/chair a session - 'Farming with Nature' - 4 x talks + 30 min Q&A. Our speakers will be: Nikki Yoxall, Head of Research at Pasture for Life (i.e. the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association), which supports the link between research and Knowledge Exchange. She is also a livestock farmer and, along with her husband, runs Grampian Graziers up in the NE of
This returning, to an in-person, event will focus on the topic of innovation. It will feature an exhibition space, together with an impressive speaker programme of key note addresses and panel sessions, early evening reception, and awards ceremony. Further details can be found here. SEFARI & SEFARI Gateway will have a stand presence, so please come and visit us.
Increasingly trees are being promoted as a means to increase carbon storage and hence off-set climate change. However, it is critical to not only understand the gains in above-ground carbon (the carbon in the trees) but to also understand the impact of the trees on the carbon stored in the soil, and how these impacts differ between different soil types. We reviewed recent literature on changes in carbon storage following woodland establishment. Studies across modelling work, experimental plots, and large-scale surveys indicated that in the initial decades following tree establishment soil
In 2020, researchers and practitioners collaborated to better understand how inclusive growth can be conceptualised and measured across a large, diverse and predominantly rural region in the north and west of Scotland. The project, in collaboration with Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), led to a focused statistical and spatial analysis which identified the underlying dimensions ‘behind’ inclusive growth, and then classified small areas in the Highlands and Islands into clusters, representing differences in inclusive growth performance and protected characteristics. With further
Jonathan Hopkins 1, Nick Schurch 2, Andy Sarjeant 3, Catherine MacNeil 3, Mags Currie 1, Eilidh MacDonald 3, Rachel Forrest 3, Heather Smith 3, Robin Clarke 3 1 Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Department, The James Hutton Institute; 2 Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland; 3 Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The ToWards Inclusive Growth project was funded by the SEFARI Gateway Responsive Opportunity Initiative and the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) Division as part of the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Portfolio. Views expressed are those of