This summer I am cataloguing the flora and plant communities of twelve islands [EDIT 20/11/22: it ended up being eleven islands!] in Strangford Lough, with the help of a BSBI Plant Study Grant. The goal is to have a complete species list of each island and a map showing all of the plant communities and where they occur. I have been kayaking to these islands and doing a thorough survey, and also quadrats in each distinct plant community.

Acid rain is a term that refers to a mixture of wet and dry deposits (deposited material) from the atmosphere that contains greater than normal amounts of nitric and sulfuric acids.

A fundamental goal of conservation is to prevent species from becoming extinct, be it regional or global. But how do we define a species’ risk of extinction? A species can be described as Critically Endangered if the probability of extinction in 10 years or three generations is considered to be more than 50%; endangered if there is more than a 20% chance of extinction in 20 years or five generations;

Seas cover a smaller area than oceans and are usually found where land and ocean meet. Normally, the seas are partially enclosed by land. The only exception is the Sargasso Sea, which is defined by ocean currents. We often hear that size doesn’t matter, but in the maritime sector, it does. In fact, it’s a matter of size! It is the vast surface of the ocean that slightly distinguishes it from the sea.

Coral reefs are very complex ecosystems that, with their beautiful and unique structures, provide valuable habitats for fish and other animals. These structures are a refuge for many organisms such as fish, marine worms, clams, and many other animals and plants that play important roles in the coral reef ecosystem.

Mutualism, or interspecific cooperation, is the way in which organisms of different species exist in a relationship where each benefits from the activity of the other. Mutualism as the term was first introduced by Pierre Joseph Van Beneden in his 1876 book Animal Parasites and Messmates.

Solar panels are made of crystalline silicon or thin-film and therefore those are the two main types of solar panels that are used in rooftop and outdoor installations, crystalline silicon, and thin film. Crystalline silicon solar panels are the most common, they have the appearance of blue or black rectangular grids of smaller squares. These little squares are silicon solar cells and are connected in series to form a circuit.

A high coverage, high quality genome sequence of the butterfly Bicyclus anynana is published today in GigaScience . B. anynana , the squinting bush brown, is a fascinating model species that can modify its morphology in response to environmental clues.

Should you cite preprints in your papers and should journals allow this? This is a topic that gets debated periodically. The most recent round of Twitter debate started last week when Martin Hunt pointed out that the journal Nucleic Acids Research wouldn’t allow him to cite them. A couple of days later I suggested that journals that don’t allow citing preprints are putting their authors’ at risk by forcing them not to cite relevant work.

The Weecology lab group run by Ethan White and Morgan Ernest at the University of Florida is seeking a Data Analyst to work collaboratively with faculty, graduate students, and postdocs to understand and model ecological systems. We’re looking for someone who enjoys tidying, managing, manipulating, visualizing, and analyzing data to help support scientific discovery.