We’ve had a visiting researcher with us this week, Dr Piero Visconti, from the Global Mammal Assessment programme, Sapienza University of Rome (http://globalmammal.org/staff/piero-visconti/). I invited him over for some collaborative research and to get to know our crew in general, as we clearly have many shared interests. Piero gave a talk at the department with a slightly provocative title: “Mitigating future biodiversity loss, how much can protected areas do?” Mammal conservation clearly attracts people, as we had a full house at the seminar even though it’s mid-June and the department appears half empty. Piero has selected the paper for this week’s journal club, and will make a guest appearance in the blog shortly!