Some super lichens here in the Dolomites. A favourite of the trip so far is Bellemerea alpina, a species that's incredibly scarce in the Cairngorms but in the heart of its range here.

En route to the First Symposium of Alpine Lichenology. Very excited for this! I'll be discussing work from our Scottish hills and looking forward to putting it in the context of mountain environments on a wider scale.

Interesting looking study on the effects of seabird droppings on plant communities. Not read properly yet, but a quick skim and lichens are only mentioned once, despite being the only 'plant' visible in the lead photo (yes I know they're not plants, but)

Female Belted Beauty moth. This is the Scottish subspecies, Lycia zonaria atlantica, found on machair grassland in the Hebrides (here on Mingulay)

In Birmingham for our workshop on lichen microbiomes thanks to the NERC Arctic Office. Here's @ingeborgklarenberg.bsky.social talking about her work on lichen associated communities in Antarctica

Good to see the BBS has made it over here too

A map that centers on New Zealand, which I guess is reparation for all the maps that leave New Zealand off entirely.

Aquatic photosynthesis knowledge would be at a considerably lower level without John Raven. What a life and legacy! 🌊 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Lots of this lovely Usnea ciliata to be found on the Grand Traverse of the Remarkables above Queenstown. A New Zealand endemic, one of its defining characteristics is the purple-black pigmentation at the ends of its branches

Want a quick overview before diving into @metalichen.bsky.social et al's new work on Xanthoria -omics in @currentbiology.bsky.social? Read our commentary here www.cell.com/current-biol...

Currently in New Zealand and blown away by the lichen assemblages here. Many familiar genera, but new species to me and boy are those macrolichens BIG. Here are Sticta latifrons, Yarrumia colensoi, and Stereocaulon ramulosum from the Mt Aspiring national park.

Some personal news: I was made redundant from UKClimbing as Editor-in-Chief after 10 years in the company. I'll continue my freelance journalism, but I'm also open to part/ full-time reporting/writing/editing opportunities and story tips. RTs/shares much appreciated. Thank you! www.natalie-berry.com

Would love to see this in the wild some day - what a beauty

Hunting for frosty Cladonia in the Cairngorms this morning. Glad to get fieldwork out of the way before the impending cataclysm of Storm Eowyn

If you're interested in finding out more about lichens, do look at the British Lichen Society's (BLS) events page for walks, talks and more across the country over the next few months britishlichensociety.org.uk/the-society/...

Welcoming the British Lichen Society to Bluesky, just in time for this year's AGM at the Natural History Museum in London.

Good to be back at the NHM for the British Lichen Society AGM. Feels like a long long time since my last visit.

Letharia vulpina. We’ve found lots of oxidative enzyme activity here, and keen to search for generalisation of this. Do you have it growing in a place you work? Able to collect some and post it to us?

Interested in lichen conservation? Check out our new article on the best way to go about carrying out lichen red list assessments.

Might be time to boost this again with new people arriving from fb. Thanks @paulrfoth.bsky.social for putting this together! go.bsky.app/Kt6UtG6

Really nice talk on lichen secondary metabolite production in response to environmental harshness in Antarctica by Inger de Jonge. Looking forward to reading the paper!

Erika Hiltbrunner talking about the effect of drought on terricolous alpine lichens

@scootjd.bsky.social on his neat peat phenology photo project

Last up in the BES microbial ecology session is Marie Le Geay on microbial roles in peatland C cycling

Josh Thurston on his PhD work on Sphagnum, Racomitrium and Cladonia microbiomes from our field site in the Cairngorms

Next up Tristan Lafont Rapnouil on Sphagnum microbiomes

Vincent Jassey describing a cool reciprocal transplant experiment to look at the effects of warming on microbial primary productivity in peatlands. Extra points for NIN shirt.

🐧 Do you love the polar regions? 🗺️ Do you love maps? 🛰️ Do you love beautiful aerial pictures? 🧮 Do you love well-presented data? We heartily recommend you follow the BAS Mapping and Geographic Information Centre, who are known internally (and appropriately) as ✨ MAGIC ✨

Excellent turn out for the Peatlands and Wetlands social! @britishecolsoc.bsky.social

Time for BES with the @func-ecol-lab.bsky.social crew @britishecolsoc.bsky.social

Today we're off to the @britishecolsoc.bsky.social annual meeting in liverpool, ready to talk soils, microbes, cryptogams...

New PhD opportunity to come and work on alpine wetlands with a team of excellent humans. Would suit someone who likes going up hills and is keen to develop research in peatland ecology. Go! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Grabbing a coffee before heading over to Kendal Basecamp, and there is a palpable air of panic in the voices of the locals. "Good luck" they say to each other as if about to embark on some perilous journey. KMF is good craic, but must be a right PITA if you live here 😅

In the warm up to the carnival that is Kendal Mountain Festival, a bunch of folk went up Loughrigg with Trash Free Trails to litter pick and help them develop their citizen science programme. Nice day on the fell, and a tonne of litter picked.

Had a lovely chat with Hazel Moran about the Martin Moran Foundation on Mike Raine's Outdoor Lives podcast. open.spotify.com/episode/2dt1...

Bryoria bicolor growing on a small outcrop in a basic flush near Kingussie. Not a lot of records of this thing about (I've only seen it once before in the NW Highlands), but no obvious reason why it's not more common. An example of something that's scarce 'just because' rather than being threatened?

We've been out in the field this week sampling lichens and collecting environmental data. Our field site in the Cairngorms is an amazing bit of lichen heath with a sub-arctic feel to it - although it's pretty warm at the moment!

map of map lichen… The British Lichen Society. Rhizocarpon geographicum Distribution Map

Look around you in the mountains and you'll soon start to notice that #lichens are everywhere. But what are these unique organisms and how do they survive in such harsh environments? Nathan Chrismas explains the remarkable biology behind nature's hardiest mountaineers ➡️ tinyurl.com/mwt7j98f

This week I'm on fieldwork in Iceland collaborating with colleagues from University of Akureyri and University of Birmingham on a UK-Iceland partnership grant sponsored by the NERC Arctic Office. Great country, great lichens, and a great team.

Freshwater aquatic lichens and freshwater aquatic lichenologists! Lots of learning and lots of fun on this week's British Lichen Society advanced course in the Lake District

AMAZING 22° halo seen from A' Mharconaich today.

Our research on Lichina pygmaea made it to the front cover of New Phytologist!

Absolutely whopping Lasallia pustulata.

#Conservation people - can anyone point me towards some literature about why some things are naturally rare? Not because of habitat loss/extinction etc, but there just don't seem to be that many of them?

Today I've mostly been trying to get over the flu while asking ChatGPT to draw me pictures of lichens in R. The results have been... mixed. thevagrantlichenologist.com/index.php/20...

The pH of Elm bark is nearly neutral which means it can support a higher diversity of lichens than other more acid-barked trees, including Caloplaca - a genus that's most frequently found on basic rocks like limestone.

Does anyone know of a table/list of features that shows how prokaryotes and eukaryotes were formerly distinguished (e.g. classic textbook), compared to updated information, esp. including findings from Asgard archaea? I want to show how knowledge has changed with time/data.

Some Christmas lichen nerdery over on my blog thevagrantlichenologist.com/index.php/20...