First bumblebee sighting of the season in Aberdeen!
25.02.2026 10:33
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First bumblebee sighting of the season in Aberdeen!
A colleague who studies ladybirds always maintained that cemeteries are the best places to find them!
Had a marvellous time at my first annual meeting of the @britishecologicalsociety.org in beautiful Edinburgh.
Whatβs more, I got to spend time with FABLab leader @fmanfredini.bsky.social and fellow member Jane Devlin who both gave exciting talks on research conducted in our lab.
Great representation of the FABLab in Edinburgh #BES2025 with two excellent posters, both involving charismatic bees and Scottish machair. On display tonight in the Lennox Suite - go find @tegangaetano.bsky.social if youβre interested.
And here we gooooo! Day 1 of #BES2025. Come visit me at my poster tomorrow between 5-6:30pm at B4.84.
@britishecologicalsociety.org
At some conferences you get free pens, but at #NESEN (North East Scotland Environmental Network) you get potatoes. π₯β€οΈπ
Many thanks to the organisers and presenters and to @srucnews.bsky.social for hosting.
Wow! Today was the final day of my last @quadratdtp.bsky.social ASM. How fast the last three years have gone! I am very grateful to QUADRAT, my cohort 4 colleagues and my supervisors (shout out to supervisor extraordinaire @fmanfredini.bsky.social) for this wonderful and challenging experience. π₯°
I am so grateful! It was an absolute joy to learn about the exciting research being conducted in the department! π₯°
I am so grateful to @jyourstone.bsky.social and her former lab at @biologylu.bsky.social for hosting me this week to learn their novel pollen scanning protocol. What a treat!
I couldnβt fit it in the original post, but a million thanks go to my supervisor @fmanfredini.bsky.social and @jyourstone.bsky.social for being the best field buddies!
I was fortunate to be supported by the Charles Sutherland Scholarship to conduct field sampling this summer for an ongoing project on the genetic structure of the cryptic bumblebee Bombus cryptarum. This work was featured in todayβs @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social SBS blog: www.abdn.ac.uk/sbs/blog/cha...
The sun is shining in South Oxfordshire, perfect weather for FIT Counts on the Ivy covering our hedgerows! Female Ivy bees busy collecting pollen, not many other insects today. FIT in πyour last counts before the @pomscheme.bsky.social survey ends on 30 Sept π
I was so lucky to have been able to spend my first @royentsoc.bsky.social meeting with this great group I met this summer at an Insect Taxonomy course at @morethanadodo.bsky.social (aka Falkβs Followers). #Ento25
A spectacular Day 1 of #Ento25! #EntOlympics (we came in 7th), an address from RES President Jane Stout in a building with more marble than the Vatican and not 1 but 2 talks on micronutrient foraging in pollinators (one from me). A million thanks to @royentsoc.bsky.social!
Accurate.
Yay! So excited that the leader of the aptly named FABLab, @fmanfredini.bsky.social, got to present some of our research at the #IUSSI Italy meeting in Bologna!
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What a privilege to have been able to spend a week learning techniques in insect taxonomy from the legendary Steven Falk & @liamcrowley.bsky.social. A million thanks to Thomas Hesselberg & ZoΓ« Simmons and her staff at @morethanadodo.bsky.social for the experience.
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Finally we found them! Great yellow bumblebee in Barra πποΈπ΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώ the gorgeous weather surely helped! Wonderful to share the excitement with @tegangaetano.bsky.social and @jyourstone.bsky.social
Fabio and Johanna doing lab work
Orchid on machair
Queen moss carder bumblebee
Feeling very lucky to be back in the #Hebrides doing fieldwork with @fmanfredini.bsky.social & @jyourstone.bsky.social. Stunning machair and the pollinators it supports!
Barra ποΈ Day #1 with @tegangaetano.bsky.social Waiting for the weather to improve π¬ Canβt wait to catch up tomorrow with @jyourstone.bsky.social for the project Hebribees!
Figure from a paper - legend: Figure 2. Measuring changes in insect biodiversity can be achieved by focusing on drivers that directly or indirectly impact insect biodiversity metrics and trends (left). Where data on insect populations specifically are unavailable, data from other species and ecological processes can provide inferential support for changes in insect biodiversity (right).
Our new paper led by @manusaunders.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... takes stock of the evidence-base for global insect declines π¦ππͺ³πͺ°π¦ and how uncertainty is being leveraged by science denialists to undermine efforts to reverse biodiversity loss ππ§ͺ.
True story
πΌπ Join the Buzz with #FITCounts!
Could you spend 10 peaceful minutes watching flowers and counting the insects that visit?
Join @biologicalrecording.co.uk 2nd July 6.30pm β 9pm to learn how to plan and undertake FIT counts to monitor pollinators: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/flower-ins...
Zoom inside a virtual waspβs nest and experience the hidden, intimate βWorld of Waspsβ β their homes, their lifestyles and their relationships. See our upcoming exhibition based on @ucl.ac.uk research. www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-coll... #GMZWasps
I have to highlight this amazing profile created for #PollinatorWeek and the folks studying them by the @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social Zoo & Roots student organisation.
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Great to be part of organising for todayβs Career Planning event for PhDs and ECRs in life sciences with @sulsa.bsky.social!
For #PollinatorWeek, weβve put together all the information youβll need to make your own pollinator garden into one place. Learn how to pick the right plants, manage issues without pesticides, and provide the nesting habitat that bees & butterflies need to thrive! π»ππ
For PhDs & early career professionals in life sciences: this is a great opportunity to get pro tips on how to use your CV and interview to make you stand out to employers. β
Hosted by @sulsa.bsky.social
βΌοΈ Only a few more days βΌοΈ
A great opportunity to work with a fun and dynamic research group at @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social
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