{"id":20022,"date":"2022-09-21T13:40:51","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T11:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=20022"},"modified":"2022-11-07T15:50:13","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T14:50:13","slug":"meet-the-scientist-karim-vahed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/2022\/09\/21\/meet-the-scientist-karim-vahed\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the scientist: Karim Vahed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
MEET THE SCIENTIST <\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

Karim Vahed<\/h2>\n\n

Entomologist and England manager at invertebrate conservation charity Buglife <\/em><\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Karim Vahed holds a Roesel\u2019s bush cricket <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

KARIM VAHED HAS BEEN FASCINATED BY insects for longer than he can remember: \u201cMy mother informs me that when I was still in nappies, I would spend ages watching ants in the garden.\u201d Karim studied biological sciences, followed by a PhD. He joined the University of Derby as a lecturer in 1993, conducting research on crickets and bush crickets alongside teaching. Karim became professor of entomology in 2012: \u201cPart of the appeal of insects is that they are incredibly diverse in terms of numbers of species, their morphology and behaviour.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Scaly crickets emerge on shingle beaches at night and feed on the strandline <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

\u201cThe <\/strong>conservation <\/strong>and <\/strong>environmental sector has been identified as one of the least ethnically diverse in the UK,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is also reflected in the diversity of students at degree level.\u201d This might be because people from ethnic minorities are more likely to be under parental pressure to aim for \u2018prestigious\u2019, high-paid careers. A lack of role models is another factor, but \u201cthings are beginning to improve\u201d, Karim states, citing natural history television presenters. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cBecoming a father <\/strong>in 2007 indirectly led me to focus on scaly crickets, Pseudomogoplistes <\/em>vicentae,\u201d <\/em>says Karim. \u201cI no longer wanted to spend summers doing fieldwork overseas.\u201d One exciting discovery he made was that females lay eggs in driftwood and that these take a year to hatch: \u201cThey may be able to disperse to new beaches by \u2018rafting\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m <\/strong>excited <\/strong>about <\/strong>my new position at Buglife as it is the only organisation in the UK concerned with the protection of all invertebrates,\u201d he says. One of Karim\u2019s responsibilities is overseeing projects that support the recovery of some of our most threatened species and their habitats. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cPublic <\/strong>perception <\/strong>of <\/strong>some groups of invertebrates is a problem,\u201d he says. \u201cA recent survey of over 2,000 people by one of my project students found that spiders and flies, for example, were ranked much lower than other arthropods in terms of their likability.\u201d But he believes with the right approach, changing attitudes is possible. <\/p>\n\n

Jo <\/strong>Price <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

Photos: KARIM: KATE BELLIS, CRICKET: ALEX HYDE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Entomologist and England manager at invertebrate conservation charity Buglife <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":20020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"21","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"21","purple_seq_number":"3","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"3","purple_source_article":"article_21-3.xml","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"article_21-3.xml","purple_source_issue":"October-2022","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"October-2022","purple_external_id":"October-2022-21-3","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"October-2022-21-3","purple_issue_code":"|0000087236||","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000087236||","purple_android_product":"com.im.wildlife.496","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.wildlife.496","purple_ios_product":"com.im.wildlife.496","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.wildlife.496","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"58d61955-0ac4-406c-83f1-ab6f21d86b70","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2022-09-22T08:26:20Z","apple_news_article-theme":"","apple_news_api_id":"a1e46438-3e40-4f78-88d6-5d852e9dba5d","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2022-09-23T09:17:31Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AoeRkOD5AT3iI1l2FLp26XQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":true,"apple_news_is_preview":true,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_article_theme":"","apple_news_sections":"[]"},"categories":[25],"tags":[14],"apple_news_notices":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/09\/b59ddebd-2d40-4e3f-b2e8-b9ba868cc7b9.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/09\/b59ddebd-2d40-4e3f-b2e8-b9ba868cc7b9.jpg",1625,1133,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/09\/b59ddebd-2d40-4e3f-b2e8-b9ba868cc7b9-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/09\/b59ddebd-2d40-4e3f-b2e8-b9ba868cc7b9-300x209.jpg",300,209,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/09\/b59ddebd-2d40-4e3f-b2e8-b9ba868cc7b9-768x535.jpg",768,535,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/09\/b59ddebd-2d40-4e3f-b2e8-b9ba868cc7b9-1024x714.jpg",800,558,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/09\/b59ddebd-2d40-4e3f-b2e8-b9ba868cc7b9-1536x1071.jpg",1536,1071,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/09\/b59ddebd-2d40-4e3f-b2e8-b9ba868cc7b9.jpg",1625,1133,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Entomologist and England manager at invertebrate conservation charity Buglife","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20022"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20823,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20022\/revisions\/20823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}