DICE PhD candidate Steven Allain has been featured in BBC Wildlife magazine after being interviewed by Jo Price. Steven’s feature was mainly based on the research and volunteering he had completed before the start of his PhD.
The article, on page 115 of the October issue, summarises his efforts to conserve local amphibians and reptiles in Cambridgeshire, where Steven had previously lived and studied. One of the projects mentioned in the feature is the hard work put in to locate and swab a population of the non-native midwife toad in central Cambridge. After locating the population, Steven and his colleagues then acquired a licence from Natural England to be able to swab the toads for the amphibian chytrid fungus to evaluate whether or not the toads posed a risk to native amphibian species.
The fungus has caused devastation to amphibian populations across the globe and, in some cases, species extinction. Luckily all of the toads tested so far have been negative but further research is needed. Steven is now working on the drivers of grass snake population dynamics including disease.