May 2006
Awards of £500 were presented to Katherine Drayson for her work on insect bio-diversity in Honduras, and to Sarah Outen for her work with basking sharks in the Hebrides.

Katherine will be working with other scientists to catalogue the insect diversity of the Cusuco National Park in Honduras, a region of undamaged cloud forest that has yielded nine species new to science in recent years. The data collected will used to determine how insect communities respond to disturbance in different habitat types and how this relates to the diversity of different taxonomic groups.

Sarah will be working on the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust's research vessel, Silurian, to characterise zooplankton and record sea-surface temperatures in the presence of surface-feeding basking sharks. These gentle yet awesome creatures are protected within UK waters, but are exploited in other parts of the world. Sarah's data will provide a baseline for further studies and contribute towards future conservation strategies for basking sharks


May 2005
Awards of £500 were presented to Hugh Doulton on behalf of the Conservation Comores 2005 project, and to Maria Demidova for her work on Caenorhabditis elegans roundworms.

Hugh will be working in a team of 5 University of Oxford students to boost conservation efforts on the remote Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. The islands' forest, rich in endemic species, is under severe threat from a burgeoning population that lacks alternative resources. The project will include an awareness campaign to raise knowledge of the need for all Comorians to work towards a sustainable future.

Maria will be working in the Genetics Unit of the Biochemistry Department at the University of Oxford to investigate the candidate immunity genes of C. elegans roundworms by various molecular biology techniques. This work will build upon the complete sequencing of the C. elegans genome in 1998, which identified a large number of predicted genes with no known function.


May 2004
Awards of £500 were presented to Clare Buckley on behalf of the Oxford University Vulture Population Survey and Local Awareness Expedition, and to Chris Armstrong for his work on the learning behaviour of foraging bees.

Clare's group will be travelling to Namibia to work with the Rare and Endangered Species Trust. They will undertake a variety of conservation projects in relation to the Cape Griffon vulture, including an aerial survey by Microlight aircraft and a local awareness project. This is Namibia's most endangered species and the support of the local community in conservation efforts is thought to be essential.

Chris's project will be based in the Bee Sensory and Behavioural Ecology Laboratory at Queen Mary College in London. He will study the variation in learning speed amongst different colonies of foraging bees. Current theories suggest that there may be a trade-off between rapidly learning to cope with a novel situation and being better at foraging in the usual environment.


June 2003
An award of £500 was presented to Lucy Moore, Worcester College, Oxford. This will partially fund a trip to Malaysia, assisting Caroline Bampfylde with the development of a simple competition - colonisation model to describe the time evolution of the population density of different tree species. The aim is to extend the research and validity of the forest model by recollecting data in the sample plots started 15 years ago and to increase the sample size over time. Understanding the natural processes that maintain diversity in rainforests is crucial in the design of sustainable management systems.


May 2001
An award of £500 was presented to Charles Edwards, Balliol College, Oxford. This will partially fund a trip to Zimbabwe for research into the genetic diversity of the painted hunting dog (Lycaon pictus), one of the most endangered canids worldwide, with the following threefold objectives:

1. To investigate the effect that historic extirpations have had on genetic diversity of the painted hunting dog, inferred from morphological measurements of museum species. This will provide wildlife managers with an early indication of population homozygosity, and a strong arguement for the importance of preserving the remaining individuals.
2. To elucidate the long-term effect of a population bottleneck on genetic diversity, thus providing results applicable in a more general context.
3. To establish newly developed techniques that could be used to provide an indication of the management strategies required for the protection of endangered species.


May 2000
An award of £500 was presented to The Oxford University Expedition to the Amphibians and Reptiles of the High Andes of Northern Ecuador (AndinoHerps 2000). The aim of the project is to carry out a diversity study of the herpetofauna and preliminary bird inventories of the main habitats of the High Andes of Northern Ecuador.

Further details of this expedition can be found at http://www.andinoherps.org.uk