Meeting of LHIDP Doctoral Students and Young Researcher Grant Holder Giorgi Chaladze, PhD
On October 26, 2018 the doctoral students participating in the LHIDP were invited to visit the Institute of Ecology at Ilia State University. The guided tour through the numerous collections of the institute was conducted by Giorgi Chaladze, PhD, current holder of the LHIDP young researcher grant. The visitors were shown the lab infrastructure and insect collections used for their research. Giorgi explained the research process, how beetles are collected in the forest and subsequently labeled, preserved and studied under the microscope. On this occasion he also introduced the doctoral students to the general idea behind his short-term research project “Estimation of invertebrate Population Size based on Movement Patterns”, which is funded within the LHIDP. Giorgi showed an arena for beetles which serves the observation on trajectories of their movements. This is a square shaped space with borders, sand used as its ground, where different species of beetle is set off from the very center of it and filmed by the special camera, which is connected to a computer and records their movements. The research project is supposed to be finished by the end of February 2019 and the findings will result in a high-impact scientific publication. The doctoral students of the LHIDP found great interest in Giorgi’s research project and were keen to learn more about it.
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