Over the weekend I spent some time at Overton Mere in Gower, running a session on colour ringing of rock pipits Anthus petrosus. The sessions involved the set up of spring traps and mist nets to catch birds by the beach. The activity was part of the annual Gower Ringing Group’s ringing course, where aside from rock pipits, participants were also able to ring many other species. You can find full details of the course in this post.
The ringing course also presented opportunities to do some bird watching by the beach and on the park mill girl guide centre and nearby stream, where I had some nice views of white-throated dipper (Cinclus cinclus) and grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea). After we were done for the day it was time to enjoy a couple of pints at the Gower Inn in good company.
Special thanks Owain for inviting to participate in the ringing course. It was nice to catch up also with the other ringers I have met previously.
Last week I attended the 20th Symposium of the International Society for Microbial Ecology, ISME20. Aside from presenting recent work on an eco-evolutionary theory of host-microbiome associations that we have developed over the last few years, I had the opportunity to attend many interesting talks showcasing research across topics and research fields.
The conference programme included research from the philosophy of microbial ecology and microbiome manipulation, to the latest advances in mathematical models for microbial ecology and the diversity and distribution of microbes and microbial communities across biomes and environments worldwide.
The poster and welcome mixer sessions also offered opportunities for networking and catching up with old friends and meeting new people. It was great to catch up with Jose, Cristina, Raquel, Sue, Ziggy, Paul, Laura, William, Wahei, Ewa, Mike. ISME is always a nice place to develop new collaborations and find out what people are up to.
My talk as part of the Theoretical microbial ecology session was entitled: Coevolutionary drivers of phylosymbiosis and microbiome divergence in host-microbe associations. I discussed our findings on the mechanisms behind the formation of complex microbiomes with heterogeneous compositions of taxa and a high abundance, all driven by the emergence of vertical transmission of microbes from parents to offspring. At the end of the talk, there were many interesting questions and a lot of people keen to discuss ecological theory for microbiomes. It was encouraging to see so many microbial ecologists interested in theory and models and in discussing their empirical systems with theoreticians.
Outside of conference time I had the chance to explore the city of Auckland. It is a very interesting town, with a nice pier and harbour and a nice skyline as well as nice opportunities for bird watching and dining outside. At night, the harbour looks cool with all the lights, which also happened to be the place for the conference party, a nice gathering that showcased a live band and nice food. All in all, quite a fun night!
ISME20 also offered extra activities to get to visit New Zealand. We took the time to visit an offshore island in the Hauraki Gulf popular amongst birdwatchers due to the abundance of native species such as Tui, Stitchbird, North Island Saddleback, North Island Kokako, Rifleman, New Zealand Bellbird, and others: Tiritiri matangi island. Thanks Cristina and Jose for the good times! It was nice to catch up again after all these years.
I am thankful to the Leverhulme Trust for supporting my research over the last few years, including attendance to this conference, funded through Research Project Grant RPG-2022-114.
Last Saturday 24th August 2026, I had the pleasure of talking to Bridgend locals about microalgae in the science tent at Broadland Fun Day. The science tent included a variety of science themed stalls from the physics of every day life to antibiotic resistance. The activities I organised for my table included crafting with paint made from spirulina, microscopy and using a vortex to re-suspend cultures. I shared my knowledge with children and parents about the world of microorganisms and how microalgae specifically play a role in the world around us.
Special thanks to Alex Caswell and Timothy Ogunrin for helping out at my stall and to Dr Geertje van Keulen for organising the Science tent.
A new collection to be published by Scientific Reports on Ecological Networks has just been launched!
For this collection I will have the pleasure to be working with an excellent group of researchers and friends as a Guest Editor. The team includes Dr Isabel Donoso from the Basque Centre for Climate Change, Spain, Dr Sandra Hervías-Parejo and Dr Sérgio Timóteo from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, Dr Shai Pilosof, from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, Dr Irene Sagrera Mendoza, from the University of Sevilla, Spain, and myself.
It is very exciting to be part of this team as we hope to create a very nice collection of papers in one of our favourite research topics: Ecological Networks!
If you are working on something exciting right now, we are very much looking forward to your submission!
And please reach out if you have any questions.
Yesterday we had the pleasure to host Samraat, who visited us from Imperial College London to share his latest research on the coalescence of microbial communities with us at the Biomathematics Colloquium.
His talk, entitled Structural complementarity maximises feasibility and stability in microbial community coalescence summarised recent theoretical work using the Microbial Consumer-Resource Model MiCRM to investigate the possibility of predicting the composition and functionality of microbial communities that result from the coalescence of different assemblages. These assemblages may differ in the extent to which they harbour different interaction types from purely competitive to purely mutualistic communities. The composition of these interactions in parent communities then determines the outcome of the coalescence event and makes the final community predictable.
This theoretical work has many similarities with recent studies in our lab looking into the dynamics of microbial communities and has made us think about potential applications of our current work. These similarities and overlapping research interests yielded very interesting discussions afterwards that Samraat and I hope to keep alive by developing future joint collaborations and projects.
We also discussed potential new avenues with Jooyoung within the framework of her PhD project and how to potentially use a version of the MiCRM to increase the predictability of the role of microbial communities on the yield of red body in Nannochloropsis oceanica.
We ended the day at the pub for a pint and a nice meal! All in all a very interesting and productive visit. Thanks Samraat!
Picture credit: Zhu et al. (2026) bioRxiv