BCOMING field trips in Guinea and Cambodia (part 2)
Following the first field trip to Guinea I joined the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge (IPC) field team from May 2nd to 8th to Stung Treng, one of the main study site for the whole BCOMING project.
Joined by colleagues from Fauna and Flora International (FFI), the University of Liege (UL) and agents from the Forestry Administration, we had the opportunity to finalize the preparation of several protocols that will be implemented in BCOMING.On the bat ecology side, we discussed Thavry HOEM, leader of the IPC field team and future PhD student, the main protocols of her future PhD: capture, mark, recapture and sampling of bats to monitor their population dynamics and its impact on the circulation of pathogens such as coronaviruses; bioaccoustic recordings in various anthropized and natural habitats to understand the spatial distribution of bats in this fast changing environment and camera trapping to observe interactions between bats and other animals.
Additionally, we made the first sampling of eDNA and discussed the protocols for the study of microbiotes of bats, humans and domestic animals with Pauline Van Leeuwen, post-doctoral fellow at Universté de Liège. With repeated sampling across two years, Stung Treng is a key site in BCOMING and will provide data for different modelling approaches developped in WP3,4,5. Having the project started in this site was a great milestone and I look forward to coming back to Cambodia and analyse the data coming from these different protocols.
