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Today, we met to discuss 2025 Postgraduate Research Experience Survey results. Lots of positives, including the quality of supervision and high confidence in on-time PhD completion 👩‍🎓 We also had great turn-out, increased from last year. Thanks to everyone who came to discuss further ideas for 2026!

The life of a #PhD researcher... They can't even take you on a nice family walk without you sticking your hands in a pond to try to ID some #pondweed 😂

#ThrowbackThursday to Neil McDonald's super interactive teaching workshop, 7 weeks ago today! BES #PhD tutors and demonstrators got a lot out of it, including this masterful sculpture of the ideal teacher with flexible tentacles, listening ears and a professional tie...

Arianna's design work looking amazing on the SNSC website! Don't forget to check it out if you're a nature-focused student (at any level) and interested in attending or presenting 🍂

First day back on campus after working from the comfort of family homes! Lovely to see BES people coming together to catch up and spend an hour thinking about beavers 😍

My third PhD chapter has just been published, we assessed the impact of Himalayan balsam invasion on riverbank stability. A massive thanks to @zarahpattison.bsky.social @drchrishackney.bsky.social @dralanlaw.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Congratulations all 🎉

Worrying signs of climate change all around Norfolk with snowdrops already out in Wells and ragged robin at @hawkandowl.bsky.social Scunthorpe 🌷🥶

The festive period wouldn't be complete in my family without some mashed potato snowmen... But this year, there has been a mashed potato biological invasion! Can you identify the UK #InvasiveSpecies? 🤣⛄

I hadn't been to Five Rivers before but the mushroom chat was very tasty and it was lovely to chat to everyone - especially Neil, who made the trip from Jura to be there and had great stories about the island and about his research!

Excited to be helping organise 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #SNSC2026 this year! Register to connect with early career environmental scientists and find out about their research 🦫 It's going to be great (and I heard there may be free pizza at the quiz... 🍕)

I had a lovely time tutoring my final undergraduate practical of the year on food webs! We used an R shiny app to visualise a coastal ecosystem food web and I enjoyed chatting to students about how they thought additional species, competition etc. would affect the model!

Super @stir.ac.uk Biological and Environmental Sciences seminar this week from now-DOCTOR Neil McDonald (congratulations! 🎉) about #ClimateAnxiety among undergraduates - an important thing to consider for anyone teaching in #HigherEducation 🎓

I especially enjoyed the discussion of how Georgina Page set up the peatland in the greenhouses (with a little help from friends!) at the University of Stirling in her recent BES seminar 🥼🪏🌱 iapetus.ac.uk/iapetus_stud...

Wouldn't necessarily have expected that one of the really engaging talks in this semester's #UniversityOfStirling BES Tuesday seminars would be about #REF but I learnt so much about how academia works from @matttinsley.bsky.social 😃 🎓

Bridget Rusk did a brilliant presentation last week at the University of Stirling about her research placement with @scottishwater.bsky.social - I really enjoyed getting the industry perspective!

Super interesting talks by Sonam Rinzin and Mark Pitt at this week's @iapetusdtp.bsky.social seminar! Lovely to hear from colleagues about completely different environmental topics :)

Fantastic @iapetusdtp.bsky.social training and induction session last week - lovely to meet the new cohort and explore #Durham and its many bookshops!

Fantastic talk on Tuesday from Alastair Skeffington and Laura Corral on circadian clocks in phytoplankton! Love to see the collaboration and it was super engaging for non-specialists in the field such as myself

Great showing from #UniversityOfStirling Biological and Environmental Sciences at the #MacMillanCoffeeMorning today! Thanks to Eileen Tisdall for organizing and to all who baked and donated (especially the vegan miso chocolate brownies and apple crumble muffins!

It's #AsianHornetWeek and a great time to brush up your knowledge of the #InvasiveSpecies #YellowLeggedHornet so you can recognise and report if you see one 👀 tracking their spread by recording sightings on the #AsianHornetWatch app can make a huge difference!

Huge problem with #HimalayanBalsam at this time of year and a sad number of #InvasiveSpecies cultivated in the gardens at #WestonPark in #Shropshire 😭 Still a fun day out, but could do with some more invasives education!

Very excited to find "Don't Pack a Pest" stickers and leaflets at #ConquerTradingPost in #Keswick - super eye-catching branding and such an important message!

There's still time to submit records for the #BigButterflyCount 🦋 It only takes 15 minutes and contributed valuable data to @savebutterflies.bsky.social 🙂 I've been looking around #Stirling and #York! Small whites seem to be dominating for me this year 🤍

#HarlequinLadybirds and #Buddleia out in force this week in #York (alongside other #InvasiveSpecies and #NonNativeSpecies like Himalayan balsam and monkeyflower)

Behind the times here, but I finally got a moment to listen to Becky on the radio and it was fab! Science communication as fun and exciting as it should be!

I’m helping raise money for Staffie Smiles Rescue! Support me at: www.justgiving.com/page/zarah-p...

I've been wondering about the impact of #HolmOak #QuercusIlex recently... @gbnnsss.bsky.social have assessed it as low risk, but my parents have just had it removed from overrunning their new garden and I found this sign on the island of Košljun 🇭🇷 which describes it as "overgrown" with holm oak

On holiday, but still hunting down #InvasiveSpecies ( #SarraceniaPurpurea and #LantanaCamara ) at #Zagreb #BotanicGarden 🪏 Fantastic place with friendly staff and only €1 for students! 🇭🇷

Took some undergrads to take part in @therockpoolproject.bsky.social #InvasiveSpeciesWeek #Bioblitz in #Burntisland and #StAndrews in #Fife 🦀 Such a lovely day and no invasive species identified (except the pampas grass growing in the leisure centre car park!) 🐚

The #RiverTay is lovely for a picnic and a wild swim at this time of year, but we need to look after it! We picked up a whole plastic bag of #litter from the sandbanks (the bag was also litter) and found some #InvasiveSpecies on our trip...

Lovely to catch up with Alice this week - really enjoyed the talk and how it was tailored to what would be interesting to the cohort based on our career stage and varied subject specialisms! 🦆🦅🦉🐦‍⬛

Make sure your #Garden is #Hedgehog -friendly this #HedgehowAwarenessWeek ! 🦔

Inspiring couple of days at the International Young Researchers Conference on Invasive Species (IYRCIS), hearing from other #ECR #InvasiveSpecies scientists and seeing the work they're doing on social aspects of #BiologicalInvasions 🐎 including a fab keynote from Franco Bostal on #FeralHorses

So interesting to see how species' traits might be used to inform #InvasiveSpecies management decisions in the future!

#InvasiveSpecies including buddleia spotted along the train line from #Dundee to #Stirling 🛤️ I don't think muntjac deer populations have officially reached the Tay yet, but nobody told the deer that...

Really disappointed to hear that @rspbscotland.bsky.social have standardized their menu and got rid of their fantastic range of vegan cakes! We would make the trip just for the vegan-friendly cafe, but I guess we won't be back (without our own picnic at least!) 😢🌱

Massive thanks to Thiago and everyone who made the BES Symposium happen! Here I am, presenting my work on factors affecting online interest in invasive non-native species 🐞 - and thanks @emofthewoods.bsky.social for the photo ☺️ 📷

Fantastic day at the @stir.ac.uk BES symposium, including a gorgeous talk about parasitic wasps from Ari, which was as much artwork as science communication 😍

Another exciting @stir.ac.uk BES seminar from Alex today and more awesome beaver graphics 🦫 Can't wait to see the results of next field season in Finland 🇫🇮

Congratulations to everyone at @durham-university.bsky.social who took part in the 3-minute thesis competition 👏 I really enjoyed watching the videos and casting my People's Choice vote ☺️

👏👏 This will be a great introduction for people thinking about different ways to visualize social-ecological networks!

Visited Kemback Waterfall in Dura Den this weekend... Lovely day to catch up with family and encounter *yet another* rhododendron invasion

Incredible graphic design from @emofthewoods.bsky.social in this week's Stirling BES seminar 😃🦫

I spent last weekend at @universityofgalway.bsky.social competing in the Irish Student Trampoline Open 🥇🥇🥈where I spotted this fab public information sign about invasive species beside the river 🪧 I'm always on the lookout for people interacting with biological invasions!

Congratulations to Felix on his engaging talk last week in the Stirling BES Tuesday seminar series 👏

Exciting things happening with the new-look @stir.ac.uk BES research groups this week 😄 including a report from Ben Wilson on the recent @scotnsconf.bsky.social conference 🏞️👩‍🏫

Just got a chance to catch up with the @stir.ac.uk BES seminar by @drruthlightbody.bsky.social from earlier this month 👏😊 thinking about responsible education and effective stakeholder involvement in decision-making is applicable to such a wide range of fields 👩🏻‍🏫🧑🏿‍🏫

Super engaging talk from Reuben Nowell today at @stir.ac.uk - making it clear why we should be interested in the overlooked but bizarre world of rotifers!