Arielle Farrell

The goal of LIFEPLAN is collect information about the current state of biodiversity worldwide, for which the team created a standardised sampling system for collecting data on insects, birds, mammals, and fungi. As a research assistant, I spend a lot of time in the forests around Uppsala collecting this data locally, and in the lab processing samples collected around the globe. I also fix a lot of malaise tents (flying insect traps).

I have a BSc in wildlife conservation from the University of Delaware, USA, and studied desert ecology for my MSc at Ben Gurion University in Israel. I conducted my thesis on above- and below-gound communities (mainly plants and bacteria) around harvester ant nests in the Negev Desert. From there, I took the logical next step of working with a team studying cognition in Great Tits in the French Pyrenees. Then, back to the desert to manage a Striped Mouse project in South Africa, until the pandemic forced us to shut it down. After an eventful 2020, I landed in Project LIFEPLAN.