So You Want To Be A Scientist?Homing Snails Experiment: About Ruth's Mentor

Scientific mentor

Dr Dave Hodgson,
School of Biosciences,
University of Exeter

What do you research?

I study the mechanisms that help to maintain biodiversity. I am interested in the population dynamics and behaviour of all organisms, but especially invertebrates.

What is the outline of your Radio 4 experiment?

The 'Homing Snails' experiment comes in two stages.

First, Ruth our amateur scientist will perform trials to determine whether snails do indeed have a homing instinct. Early signs suggest that their homing instinct is actually rather strong.

Second, she will recruit members of the public to ask the question, 'How far will snails travel to get home?' The answer will help gardeners decide how to rid themselves of these important garden pests efficiently and humanely.

What do you think is interesting about this experiment and how will it contribute to your research field?

As the world's human population grows, there is intensifying pressure on our crops and livestock to feed us. Renewed interest in 'local food' and 'homegrown crops' means that the public are exposed to all of the pests and crop diseases that have plagued farmers for millennia. And yet we are motivated to treat animals humanely.

This experiment is a fascinating mixture of behaviour, animal-plant interactions, applied ecology and citizen science. The fact that such apparently simple organisms can find their way home is already exciting: the idea that they can do this over long distances is a fascinating hypothesis.

What can amateurs contribute to scientific research?

Citizen science is a great way to raise awareness of the natural world and the need to conserve biodiversity. While amateurs sometimes lack the scientific rigour and objectivity required of professional scientists, the general public remains an incredible, untapped resource for information.

Our goal therefore is to engage the public in large scale experiments, and share the scientific method of hypothesis testing. This will help stem the spread of 'bad science', and give the public an insight the work of scientists.

What do you hope will come out of this project?

I sincerely hope that a national project on snail homing behaviour will provide results of sufficient rigour to

• (a) be publishable in the scientific literature
• (b) be of interest to a wide audience, and
• (c) provide useful information to gardeners