Congrats Bruce. How did you come to pick the subject Dung beetle, do you get a list or have to come up with it yourself. Would love to hear how the whole process as regards scholarship works and how long you will be away and if in college over there or what ?
Came up with the topic myself, a long story as to how I came up with it, but basically we've been reducing wormers on farm here over the last number of years. This year so far the calves have been dosed twice and that's it, heifers got nothing since last year, cows got nothing since 2017, results backed up by herd health screening and faecal egg counts, the parasites are losing! I have to give the humble dung beetle a lot of the credit for this, and it's something I want to investigate further so I can dissemble the information to other farmers. The less anthelmintics used, the less likely of there being resistance. The biodiversity part is a spin off, basically as a results of not using anthelmintics, there will be more insects around, these insects are feed for a whole lot of other creatures. I could bore ye to tears on the subject!
In terms of the scholarship, I will be travelling to Brisbane next March for the global conference, that's where we meet up with other scholars from around the world and go for training workshops etc.
Next year then the Irish scholars will be divided up and I will be added to a group of other scholars from around the world to do 6 weeks of travel to different parts of the world studying different farming systems/industry etc.
Then I get to decide when and where I travel to in relation to my topic, minimum of 3 weeks.
I then get to do a report (10,000 words) on my findings/recommendations to hand in for the end of 2 years.
Then, if appropriate, I bring the findings/report to industry with recommendations.