Silwood Park Campus hosts state-of-the-art facilities that support a wide variety of ecological and evolutionary research. Facilities include growth chambers for plants and animals, and recently built environmental microbiology and genomics laboratories. Facilities are available for usage by Imperial staff, students, and visiting researchers.
facilities
- Aviaries
- Controlled environment chambers and greenhouses
- Silwood Park fields
- Royal Society Wolfson Genomics Laboratory
- Environmental Microbiology Laboratory
Modern aviaries were built at Silwood Park in 2017 for long-term behavioural studies. Space is available contingent on relevant licenses for housing captive bird populations.
For queries, please contact Dr Catalina Estrada, aviary coordinator.
Silwood Park operates controlled-environment chambers that are used primarily for growing plants an insects, including chambers with temperature, humidity, and light control. Facilities include greenhouses, controlled environment rooms, a Fitotron and smaller incubators.
For queries, please contact Dr Emma Ransome, CE room manager, Sasha Angell or Paul Beasley, technicians
Greenhouse
The campus grounds have a mosaic of natural and managed habitats including acid grassland, scrubland, woodlands, arable land, streams and a lake. It is also an active place of field research hosting multiple long-term experiments and study sites for global studies.
For more information visit our Field Experiments page or contact Dr Catalina Estrada, Ecological Analyst and Facility Manager.
The Environmental Genomics laboratory was built in 2016 using funds provided by a grant from the Royal Society Wolfson Laboratory Refurbishment scheme. The Laboratory is conceived to be run as a multi-user facility. It is fully equipped for standard molecular work (Containment level 2), including an Illumina MiSeqTM System for sequencing, PCR and post-PCR rooms, and other standard equipment.
For general enquiries about the lab or to request the use of this facility please contact Professor Vincent Savolainen, lab manager, or Sasha Angell, technician. Help is available for training of staff and students, and to help designing genomic experiments.
The Environmental Microbiology Laboratory was built in 2015. The facility is designed for work with Biosafety Category 2 microorganisms. Core equipment includes microbiological safety cabinets, fume hood, deionised water, and waste and media autoclaves.
For general enquiries about the lab or to request the use of this facility please contact Peter Graytock or the technicians team. Help is available for training of staff and students.
