Ollie Spacey
@biolliegist.bsky.social
230 followers 170 following 46 posts
DPhil (PhD) student in Salgo Team, Dept Biology, Uni of Oxford🔬| Parasite ecology and evolution, especially mistletoe 🦠🌱🦟 | BES Quantitative Ecology 📊📈
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biolliegist.bsky.social
It's 1st December... which means it's time for my merry #mistletoe advent calendar! One mistletoe fact a day up to Christmas (without repeating myself from last year...) 🎄🌱🧪 (1/26)
European mistletoe with green slender leaves and white berries in golden sunlight
biolliegist.bsky.social
Anyone interested in queer ecology, forests or SDMs... roll up! 🌲🌈📈
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
📣 Two weeks to go! 📣

Don't forget to sign up using the link below.
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
Join us for our next webinar, with @besaldernetwork.bsky.social!

Catherine Mercer and Ella Kaye will present their work predicting forest distributions using SDMs, and with @RainbowR, an organisation promoting LGBTQIA+ voices in the R community.

Tues 14th Oct @ 11am BST

Sign up: bit.ly/3HWpEol
biolliegist.bsky.social
Do you research disease models/epidemiology? Come join the next installation in our free seminar series TOMORROW - an awesome talk on brucellosis dynamics in wild ibex! 🦌
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
📣 Last chance to sign up! 📣

Tomorrow at 10am.
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
📣 Join us for our next Quantifying Ecology webinar! 📣

This time, Dr Rémi Fay will present in collaboration with @bes-parasitesgroup.bsky.social :

"Modeling the dynamics of brucellosis in an wild Alpine ibex population."

9th Sep @ 10am BST bit.ly/3HWpEol
biolliegist.bsky.social
starting in just over half an hour! check it out 🌊
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
Our Quantifying Ecology series is kicking off next week! Join us on Tues 5th Aug for our first webinar 🐟
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
📣 Don’t forget to sign up to our first Quantifying Ecology webinar! 📣

We join Dr James Orr in collab with @bes-aquaticgroup.bsky.social for:

”Variability of community-level responses contains information about ecosystem functioning and global change impacts”

5th Aug @ 9am BST

bit.ly/44SzlwG
Reposted by Ollie Spacey
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
📣 One more day to register! 📣

We kick off tomorrow at 9am BST.
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
📣 Don’t forget to sign up to our first Quantifying Ecology webinar! 📣

We join Dr James Orr in collab with @bes-aquaticgroup.bsky.social for:

”Variability of community-level responses contains information about ecosystem functioning and global change impacts”

5th Aug @ 9am BST

bit.ly/44SzlwG
biolliegist.bsky.social
Our first Quantifying Ecology webinar! This series of collaborations with different groups across the BES should give something for everyone interested in nature and numbers - check it out: www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/quan... 🐠🔢
Reposted by Ollie Spacey
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
Quantitative methods underpin all of ecology - whether we like it or not!

Join our new webinar series, 🌱📈 Quantifying Ecology 📈🌱, where we team up with other BES SIGs to explore quantitative methods in their research fields.

Kicking off on 5th Aug. Keep following for updates and links!
Reposted by Ollie Spacey
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
Thrilled to announce our webinar series:

🌱📈 Quantifying Ecology 📈🌱

We are collaborating with our SIG friends to bring you quantitative methods in different ecological contexts.

Kicking off with Dr @jamesaorr.bsky.social and @bes-aquaticgroup.bsky.social on 5th August. More details to come!
Reposted by Ollie Spacey
Reposted by Ollie Spacey
streamingspires.bsky.social
Sneak peak number 2 :)
Please find a minute to head on over to YouTube and subscribe. THANK YOU!
www.youtube.com/channel/UC1Y...
Reposted by Ollie Spacey
rosemarymosco.com
Botany valentine. Another from years past. New one on Monday!
Beautiful red roses on a pink background with flowing script saying "Roses are red," Violets budding and blooming. "Violets are blue," Hydnora plants opening up looking like terrifying red mouths bursting from the hard sandy soil. "Hydnora are leafless, bizarrely fleshy, and incapable of producing chlorophyll," A splash of cute red and pink hearts. "And so are you. Happy Valentine's Day."
biolliegist.bsky.social
Just over a month left to record the #mistletoe in your area via the MistleGO survey! Find out more here: treecouncil.org.uk/science-and-...
Mistletoe clumps in poplar trees, taken from below
Reposted by Ollie Spacey
bsbicountries.bsky.social
Mistletoe isn't particularly common in North Lincolnshire, but I'm lucky to have a site not far from home. I don't remember ever seeing it in an Alder before; I'm not sure how unusual this host is. I've submitted it via the MistleGo app - I hope @biolliegist.bsky.social will be pleased!
biolliegist.bsky.social
@bsbicountries.bsky.social wonderful spot! thanks so much for submitting to mistleGO! alder is certainly not the most common host:)
Reposted by Ollie Spacey
nhcooper123.bsky.social
We've now got the green light to revamp this booklet and we're looking for volunteers to write/peer review sections. Express your interest here: forms.gle/ZYFLPaC3k2RF.... We want to feature diverse ECR writers from across the world. Women of colour are especially encouraged!
Reposted by Ollie Spacey
bes-quantitative.bsky.social
'Quantitative Ecology' means different things to different people, but one thing's for sure: we can't avoid using numbers in ecological research.

Complete our survey today to let us know what it means to you, and help us tailor our resources and events to our members' needs.

📋 shorturl.at/n6jRd
Microsoft Forms
shorturl.at
biolliegist.bsky.social
jury’s out… though they’re SO rare I reckon it would be hard to make a tradition out of…
biolliegist.bsky.social
And so concludes another year's #mistletoe advent calendar! Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year all! And if you want to help our research by recording mistletoe on your winter walks, check out MistleGO!: treecouncil.org.uk/science-and-... 🌱🎄🧪
Mistletoe research - The Tree Council
More than just a symbol of Christmas Mistletoe has an air of Christmas magic, but it is, in fact, a parasite with a fascinating relationship with trees. European mistletoe (Viscum album) grows in gre...
treecouncil.org.uk
biolliegist.bsky.social
Day 24: Pliny the Elder wrote about the druids harvesting #mistletoe from oak trees, but oak is an extremely rare host for Viscum album... There are only 13 confirmed mistletoe-oaks in Britain! (Box, 2019) Maybe Pliny was talking about Loranthus... 🌳🧪 (25/26)
Drawing of druids harvesting mistletoe from an oak tree. Original caption: The druids; or the conversion of the Britons to Christianity (1752), depicting the oak and mistletoe ritual. Engraving by S.F. Ravenet, 1752, after F. Hayman. Photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_of_oak_and_mistletoe#/media/File:%22The_druids;_or_the_conversion_of_the_Britons_to_Christianit_Wellcome_V0036085.jpg
biolliegist.bsky.social
Day 23: many species are vulnerable to the effects of drought, but mistletoe could help! One study found that Australian mistletoes like Amyema and Dendrophthoe may moderate drought impacts on birds, but the.mistletoes are vulnerable to drought themselves... (Crates et al., 2022) 🐦🧪 (24/26)
Mistletoebird (Dicaeum hirundinaceum) with a mistletoe seed in its mouth. Photo: James Peake/Alamy https://www.audubon.org/news/mistletoe-whats-it-birds
biolliegist.bsky.social
Day 22: the effects of #mistletoe on ecosystems can be complex... Recently, scientists in France have found invasive Drosophila suzukii flies using Viscum album fruits to help them overwinter, and mistletoe could support the flies in infesting crop fruits (Deconninck et al., 2024) 🍎🧪 (23/26)
Graphical abstract from Deconninck et al., 2024, Arthropod-Plant Interactions. It shows mistletoe-infested trees from winter to summer with Drosophila species feeding on mistletoe berries in several locations across France.
biolliegist.bsky.social
Day 21: a somewhat less scientific #mistletoe fact... Cliff Richard's Christmas classic "Mistletoe and Wine" was the best-selling song in the UK that whole year, with over 500,000 copies sold. It was originally written for a musical ("Scraps"), based off a Hans Christian Andersen novel...🍷🧪 (22/26)
Single cover for "Mistletoe and Wine" with dark blue background, square picture of Cliff Richard in a denim jacket, his name above and the title below. Photo: EMI records.
biolliegist.bsky.social
Awesome! Yes, parasites have all sorts of adaptations to get the most out of their host:)