AWARD WINNER: DARRAGH WOODFORD

Darragh Woodford, a Postdoctoral Fellow at SAIAB, was awarded the EIFAAC (European Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Advisory Commision) award for best poster at a conference on Freshwater Invasives - Networking for Strategy (FINS) in Galway, Ireland.

Woodford’s poster described a study that he has been conducting on an irrigation network in the Sunday’s River catchment; “I used this artificial ecosystem as a natural experiment to understand how factors like the number of invading fish entering a river network over time, the local habitat conditions and the breeding adaptations of each fish species interact to enable the success and speed of invasion,” He explained. Woodford’s poster also pointed out that inter-basin water transfer schemes, which provide a constant source of new introductions, represent a serious threat to securing river systems against new invasions, both in South Africa and around the world. Woodford provided input for a SAIAB Research Nugget, entitled, Sunday’s River Invasions Project; find the Research Nugget http://www.saiab.ac.za/features/sundays-river-fish-invasions-project.htm

Woodford says he sees this award as a validation of the quality of research he has been able to produce through his collaborations at SAIAB and the Centre for Invasion Biology (CIB) at Stellenbosch University. “Given that this was a conference organised by and for European fisheries agencies, universities and government bodies, the award is testament to the fact that the research we do here at SAIAB is relevant, not only to South Africa but also to Europe and indeed many places around the world,” he said.