SMEthane

Aberystwyth University has a long and distinguished history of teaching and research in the fields of biology, agriculture and related disciplines.  Established in 1872 as the University College of Wales Aberystwyth, the University has had a major global impact on Agriculture, particularly livestock agriculture. The establishment of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station (WPBS) in 1919 made Aberystwyth a global force in the development of grasses and clovers for temperate upland agriculture. This tradition continues today with the formation in April 2008 of the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) from the fusion of the Institutes of Biological Sciences and Rural Sciences with the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (the former WPBS. Within IBERS the Animal and Microbial Sciences theme consists of 80 staff and aims to improve our understanding of the interactions between farm animals and the microbes that live within them and their environment, in order to enhance the quality of animal production systems and promote human health. Together with his colleagues Prof N Scollan and Dr J Moorby, Prof Newbold has developed a significant research programme on the nutritional mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from ruminants funded from UK research councils and governmental departments.  To support this research they have established chambers (8) for measuring methane emissions in sheep and have pioneered the tunnel techniques for measuring emissions of animals at pasture. A further 4 chamber for measuring emissions from cattle are currently under construction and they are establishing and verifying the use eddy covariance to measure fluxes form livestock in their native environment. These animal facilities are supported by state of the art laboratories including extensive in vitro resources for batch culture incubations and longer term rumen simulating fermentors (16 x)  together with dedicated analytical and metabolomics facilities.

Staff involved:

• Prof. Jamie Newbold: is the Director of Research and Enterprise at IBERS. His research interests focus on the understanding and manipulation of gut ecosystems to improve animal productivity while reducing the environmental impact of animal husbandry.
• Prof Nigel Scollan is Animal and Microbial Sciences Theme Leader at IBERS. His research interests focus on ruminant production systems and the production of high quality ruminant products that promote human health.
• Dr Jon Moorby in a senior scientist who leads the Environmental Impact Research Group at IBERS. Current project within the group include EU funded work to minimise N excretion from ruminants and a UK government funded project to establish more precise inventories of greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant production systems.
• Mrs Hilary Worgan is the laboratory manager within Prof Newbolds research team and manages both the laboratory and animal facilities available to the team.
• Miss Helen Lloyd provides administrative support for Prof Newbolds team and will take responsibility for the training workshops to be run within this project.

Web site: www.aber.ac.uk