Jake Dalzell
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bitheolaidhe.bsky.social
Jake Dalzell
@bitheolaidhe.bsky.social
botanist and micromycologist from Belfast
luıḃeolaıḋe ⁊ mıcrıṁíceolaıḋe 'e ḃunaḋ Ḃéal Feırste

PhD student in Aberystwyth. Network ecology, evo eco, conservation, etc.

My website: irishplants.org
Field Guide to Plant Pathogens: plantpathogens.net
Pinned
I am starting a PhD and am looking for grassland restoration/rewilding sites in Northern Ireland! Please forward this flier to anyone who might be interested in having their land surveyed for fungi!
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
Two fabulous sedges from late April on Arnside Knott.
Spring Sedge (Carex caryophyllea) and its rare red relative Carex ericetorum (Rare Spring Sedge).
The beautiful wine red glumes of ericetorum separate these really well in flower/fruit. What beauties! 😍
@bsbibotany.bsky.social
December 17, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
A major new YouGov poll of 2,600+ people shows:

78% favour solar
63% support onshore wind
70% back offshore wind

And 70% would support a solar farm near their own home.

That’s a landslide.
December 16, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
Funded PhD Opportunity: Seagrass Disease Ecology
Explore how the pseudofungus Phytophthora gemini impacts Zostera marina and restoration success. Lab + fieldwork @thembauk.bsky.social @plymuni.bsky.social & OCT. Combine microbiology, ecology & restoration science 🌱
👉 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK439/p...
November 17, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
To round up my year of biological recording, here are my favourite finds from each month of 2025!

January - Jubula hutchinsiae

I re-found this colony recorded in 2004 in the Glen Stream, co. Down. A v interesting & unmistakable oceanic liverwort of humid wooded stream valleys
December 11, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Are you interested in learning more about identifying plant pathogens in the wild? Come along to my webinar at 7pm on the 27th of January!
bsbi.org/take-part/ev...

#FungiFriends #WildPlantDisease
December 11, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
Having an incredible time down South, milder weather and a lot of fungi still about. Including the weird and wonderful like this White Basket! (Ileodyction cibarium) 😍
December 6, 2025 at 5:34 PM
I'm learning a programming language called Julia at the minute. Here is a graph I made showing how the probability of a disease going extinct changes as its host plant gets more common in a simulation. There is a clear and sudden phase transition below which there is a collapse in host connectivity.
December 6, 2025 at 10:52 PM
You can really see my biases in my iNaturalist records from this year. Almost all of the flies are gall midges, almost all the wasps are gall wasps, almost all of the arachnids are gall mites :P
The fungi are well represented this year in pink (1587 records), as are the plants in green (870 records)
December 5, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
1/2 #speciesaday no. 677 is Walckenaeria acuminata. Periscope up! The male of this spider has its eyes spread out along the turret - 4 half way and the other 4 at the top! This genus is an utter joy, I love showing this spider to people for the first time. Even the female has a small protrusion.
December 5, 2025 at 7:29 AM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
The brainiest orange rock posy lichen (Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca) I ever saw. Northwest Territories, Canada.
#lichen #fungi #fungifriends
December 3, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
A few Wild Radish were flowering in a fallow arable field near Pentireglaze, Cornwall today, with lovely colour hues to the petals.

Raphanus raphanistrum subsp raphanistrum
December 3, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
I wish more people were aware of this. Considering the scale of the threat, the media's near-silence is both remarkable and culpable.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Hello, foreign oligarchs and corporations! Please come and sue the UK for billions | George Monbiot
The case of a planned Cumbrian coalmine shows how governments around the world are being threatened by litigation in shadowy offshore courts, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
December 2, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
Plant taxonomy is disappearing - and so is our ability to protect species 🍂

Nearly half of countries have fewer than 10 plant taxonomists. Kew is working to close the gap, but we need more experts fast.

Read the study’s key findings and what we're doing about it 👇
https://ow.ly/XhJo50XyGAa
December 1, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Unfortunately I have picked up a virus and will not make it to #BIBConf but here is my poster, which explains what I am doing in my PhD.
#FungiFriends #WildPlantDisease
November 29, 2025 at 7:20 AM
Interactions between plant pathogens (left) and plants across five quadrats in a restored species-rich grassland. The basic premise of my PhD is to see if these interaction networks differ between restored and ancient grasslands.
#FungiFriends #NetworkEcology
November 19, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
Waxcap #fungi
November 9, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Meadow, Snowy, Pink Waxcap at an ancient grassland site I am sampling today. The wonders of rural South Down!
#FungiFriends
November 8, 2025 at 11:36 AM
My soil sampling partner for the day. Very interested in sniffing all my equipment! All I could think of was "an Mhuc Dhubh" which killed one of the Fianna in a story I heard last week...
November 7, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
The success of Wikipedia demonstrates the good that comes from trust between strangers, says founder Jimmy Wales.

With his new book The Seven Rules of Trust released today, Jimmy spoke with RNZ about building the world's largest online encyclopedia on trust.

🎧📖 Listen and read below 👇
'I was very nervous at first' - how the founder of Wikipedia learnt to embrace trust
The success of Wikipedia demonstrates the good that comes from trust between strangers, says founder Jimmy Wales.
www.rnz.co.nz
October 27, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
Parrot waxcaps in local Hazelwood.#fungi
October 27, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
Fungi specimens collected for DNA sequencing. Raffle tickets are useful for tracking specimens as they are dried
October 25, 2025 at 8:10 AM
I had a great time this morning learning to use the Scanning Electron Microscope. Here are urediniospores of Puccinia rusts from the grassland restoration projects of @donnarainey4.bsky.social and @ceanncait.bsky.social . I'm hoping it will help with ID!
#FungiFriends #PlantPathogens
October 22, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Jake Dalzell
The craziest coloured Parrot Waxcaps I’ve ever seen!! Aren’t they amazing!!!! 💚🩵💛🩷🧡

#FungiFriends #MushroomMonday
October 20, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Polka dots of Entyloma calendulae on Marigold in Aberystwyth today.
#FungiFriends #plantpathogens
October 18, 2025 at 4:40 PM