Profile

Hello all! I am Savanna van Mesdag, a biologist by nature who is currently also dabbling in geochemistry. I am bisexual and my pronouns are she/her. I haven’t spent much time in the LGBTQ+ scene, but I will definitely consider doing more of this once things become safer virus-wise. While I have an English accent I have lived in Scotland for many years, mostly in Inverness, Edinburgh and Glasgow (my family like to move around a lot!). Just to be more confusing, I have a British dad and an Irish and Dutch mum! I consider myself ‘western European’ rather than ‘British’ (and definitely not just English, although I have some English in me). I very much love living in Scotland and I’m so glad that I’m able to do a PhD that focusses so much on Scottish wildlife, habitat and, to a certain extent, heritage (defined as a legacy of cultural resources, basically, bits of our history which we can still enjoy today). I’m very interested in nature, with animals being a life-long passion of mine. In addition, I’m very interested in taxonomy (the classification and identification of living things) and evolution, elements of which I’m also incorporating into my PhD. I have many hobbies and interests outside of my academic sphere as well, including animation (yes, I do watch and love anime), art (going to galleries, I can’t do art to save my life), architecture (looking at buildings) and literature (I love a mixture of fiction and non-fiction books, especially books about nature, wildlife, history and various social issues).

For my PhD (four-year project at University), I have been studying man-made habitats, as well as the plants and invertebrates that live on them! The primary substrate, or ‘ground cover’, on these sites is steel slag. Steel slag is a waste product of the steel industry. Both steel and steel slag are generated in large, very hot furnaces.
As Dr Tara Shine mentioned in the 3rd 2020 Christmas Lecture, the use of substances like coal (which is involved in the steel-making process, to heat the furnaces), releases a great deal of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is not really what we want at the moment!

Historically, steel slag was almost always dumped on sites close to the furnaces where it was made. While these steel slag sites can have some negative impacts on the environment (particularly through leachates, when water flowing over steel slag becomes contaminated with trace metals and these trace metals enter water-courses), they can also provide space for interesting and important habitats for a range of different species. This is not only beneficial from a species and wildlife point of view, but it shows that steel slag can provide some environmental benefits despite the high amount of carbon dioxide released by the steel industry. Unfortunately, as very little specific research has been done into steel slag site habitats, we don’t know much about the <em>specific</em> species that might be found on them, but that’s where I come in! I’ll be recording and studying species living on steel slag, particularly focussing on plant species.  I also plan to collect plants from both of these sites and grow their seeds during plant growth experiments, where I can compare and contrast the growth of plants in steel slag to soil from gardens.

While I’m not directly studying this, steel slag, once it has been made, can potentially capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere! My supervisor, as well as a few of my fellow PhD students, have been studying the carbon capture abilities of steel slag in great detail. This demonstrates that steel slag could have varied and additional benefits to the environment.

Other than my PhD work, I have had valuable expereince in other areas of science as well!  Before my PhD, over a few months, I carried out a Master’s (MSc) dissertation project, at Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum, focussing on ancient fish fossils.  I was looking at the bone of these fossils, which was unusual bone, because it was growing in such a way that was unexpected in this species of fossil fish.  Later, my Master’s supervisor and I did further work, including similar work on other fossil fish bones that also turned out to be unexpected and unusual.  I was able to have a paper published, along with my supervisor and two other authors, on the bone in these fossil fishes.  Publishing papers is very important for many scientists (especially for scientists working at universities), because it shows that we have developed important science writing skills and showcases the research we have already done.

Before my Masters, I did an undergraduate project over a few months, at Edinburgh Napier University.  This project focussed on various aspects of wader bird distribution and behaviour at a lovely bird-watching site near Edinburgh (Musselburgh, specifically).  Wader birds are those birds, usually with long beaks, that scuttle along the shoreline looking for ‘yummy’ molluscs and crustaceans to eat.  These can include species such as oystercatchers, with black and white plumage and bright orange/red beaks, as well as curlews, which have very long, curved beaks.  I watched wader birds in the near-freezing cold for several days, at a bird hide, over the winter-early spring.  Luckily, I recorded some interesting information about their behaviour!  I was able to chat to other birders at the hide and these people very kindly helped me with my bird-watching and research.  One of these people worked for the SOC, the Scottish Ornithologist’s Club and I was able to share my undergraduate thesis with him once it had been submitted.  I hope that the information in my thesis was useful to at least some of the people in this organisation.