George West

George West

Profile

I am a graduate from the University of Birmingham where I obtained my undergraduate M. Sci degree in Biological Sciences. My main area of interest is Conservation Biology and how we can protect and maintain biodiversity. For my final year project, A gap analysis of crop wild relatives (CWR) in Turkey, I performed a conservation gap analysis for 764 crop wild relative taxa in Turkey using GIS software to create species distribution maps that can be used to inform conservation policy. As a part of this project I travelled to Turkey and collaborated with the Aegean Agricultural Research Institute working with their scientists on the methods and data I would use to complete the analysis, when my thesis was completed it was shared with the institute to further their own work on conserving these species.

George West

Ecology and Biodiversity

University of East Anglia, School of Biological Sciences

PhD title: Genetic Rescue and the conservation of small populations.

One of the key issues facing conservation efforts is the decreased genetic diversity of endangered species and the problem this poses for their recovery and conservation. This project aims to examine the method of genetic rescue as a conservation technique using controlled genetic rescue experiments to simulate endangered populations.

Using the model species Tribolium castaneum laboratory experiments will be used to assess how genetic rescue can affect the recovery of populations in a range of circumstances by allowing us to generate “endangered” populations. Then attempting genetic rescue to look at how variables such as population size, level of inbreeding and gene flow can affect its success.

The results of these experiments will allow for improved understanding of how genetic rescue can function as a tool for conserving endangered species as well as how variables may affect the success of the technique.

Publications

    Conservation gap analysis of crop wild relatives in Turkey

  • Necla Tas, George West, Gun Kircalioglu, S. Boyraz Topaloglu, Jade Phillips, Shelagh Kell and Nigel Maxted Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization and Utilization (2019) 17(2); 164–173 doi:10.1017/S1479262118000564

Further Information

Camps International: Camp Borneo 2012

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0489-1109