A PhD Student travelled from Windhoek to the Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, University of Pretoria during the last two week of October 2019, to carry out a DNA extraction experiment. The aim of the experiment was to extract DNA from soil samples, which will be sequenced to determine taxonomic and functional diversity of soil microbial communities in plant hummock and bare ground soils.

A team of researchers and students travelled from Windhoek to the Skeleton Coast National Park during the first week of June 2019. The team went to collect the first set of litterbags that were deployed in the field end of March 2019. The aim of the experiment is to measure the rate of litter decomposition in a hyper-arid system. About 464 litterbags were deployed under different plant species canopies, with the purpose of collecting a set of two litterbags per shrub to determine the weight loss (which is litter decay rate) at an interval of 4 months.