Early career ecologists - making progress in winter

Winter, hibernation season for ecologists? Not quite, but it's definitely the time to slow down, write reports, catch up on admin. and take back some of those extra hours we all work during the summer. But what if you're an early career ecologist, who either doesn't have a full-time job yet or whose seasonal role has now ended. How best can you best fill the winter months? Hopefully you've managed to earn enough in the summer to keep you going, but how best to prepare yourself for the next season?

I suspect you'll be spending an inordinate amount of time hunting the job sites, sending out CVs, crafting cover letters (a truly satanic task, if ever there was one) and praying that you'll get the job you know you deserve. Whoah! Stop that negative thought NOW - you DO deserve it. Winter is also peak the peak season for depression. 

Earlier in the year I posted some suggestions for ways to enhance your field skills and improve you chances in the job market (Field skills for early career ecologists and Early career ecologists and hamster-powered scootering). So what can you do to enhance your employability when the weather is wet and grubby and all the interesting wildlife is hibernating (I'm a bat specialist, so that may be a slightly biased view)? 

Here's a thought - how are your bryophyte ID skills? Many moons ago I recall standing, huddled together in the rain with a group of fellow-sufferers whilst Nick Hodgetts bounded enthusiastically around an embankment, showing us different bryophyte species (Nick's a brilliant tutor by the way, and I can recommend the courses he leads). The fact is that bryophytes are often at their best when wet and some species are especially useful for habitat indication. I wrote a post about a few commoner bryophytes a few years back (Right-diddly-wotsit-squirrelly) Since then the British Bryological Society have completed their superlative field guide and I'm happy to say it's very user-friendly and a great addition to your christmas list.

A former member of my survey team got his first break into what has subsequently been a successful career in professional ecology, when he turned up to an interview and was handed a bag full of plant material and asked what he could ID from it. The first thing he noticed was Polytrichum commune - a large and striking moorland moss which, as luck would have it, I'd pointed out to him during an especially boring transect the evening before. Lucky or what? So don't neglect bryophytes! They have a charm all their own.

If you're a member of your local bat group now is the time to start asking about hibernation surveys. Be persistent and make sure they know how keen you are, because for many underground sites numbers need to be limited, to minimise disturbance. Data from these surveys feeds into the critically important National bat monitoring programme and, after having to shelve surveys last winter due to Covid it's really important to gather data this winter (though there's a new risk assessment process). You do, of course, need to accompany someone with an appropriate bat license and not just for legal reasons - underground sites are dangerous. There's more about bat hibernation surveys here: The great hibernaculum hunt and here: The great hibernaculum hunt revisited.

How are your GIS skills? When the weather is miserable, why not delve into QGIS, the free open-access GIS system which has become ever more popular over the past few years? GIS is a core skill for a lot of ecology work and if you're new to QGIS there are many free resources to help you work your way into QGIS. Take a look at The QGIS project.

Finally, winter weather isn't all bad news and there is nothing like freshly fallen snow for finding and identifying animal tracks - another very useful field skill. There are quite a few guides available, but my favourite is Preben Bang and Preben Dahlstrom's book, which has been in print since forever - I remember borrowing an early edition from the library when I was a teenager in the 1970s (the late 1970s, just to be clear!). Don't be put off by the Ray Mears celebrity gimmick on the current edition, it's a really good field guide and well worth hinting to Santa about.

One final thought - when you get that interview and you're sat there, suited and booted and quivering slightly with fear tell them about all the stuff you've done. Maybe it's a British thing, but far too many interviewees assume anything they've done probably isn't good enough and keep quiet about it unless there's a formal certificate or diploma. Take confidence in what you can achieve on your own and in what you have achieved. To prove my point, have a read of Ash Ronaldson's guest blog - Paid bat surveying is an actual, real thing - Ash's first season. Ash has just accepted a full-time job as an Assistant Ecologist. See?

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Right-diddly-wotsit squirelly

If John Donne had been an ecologist, rather than a form of suffering for High School English students, he might have said "No bat is an island". That's an appalling piece of paraphrasing and as I write it I find myself glancing over my shoulder, in fear of an avenging teacher. However, my point is this: as bat ecologists it is very easy to become entirely focussed on "our" species and lose sight of their place within the ecosystem.

With that in mind (and because the bats are far from active at present) I present a small diversion from the world of bats, into the world of bryology: the study of mosses and liverworts. Where's the relevance? Woodland is probably the most important habitat for bats and a key part of woodland structure are the mosses and liverworts. In some British woodlands they outweigh vascular plants in terms of biomass and they form an important habitat for many invertebrates which may ultimately become bat-food. Also, I like them and it's my blog.

With over 1,100 species of bryophyte in Britain, some hard to identify, there are limits to what a casual naturalist can achieve, but to show that this is no excuse, here's my guide to five common woodland mosses everyone should be able to identify, even without a hand-lens. Just to prove my point, they were all photographed in my local (rather poor) woodland this afternoon, whilst walking the dogs.

Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus (Right-id-aye-ah-dell-fuss squaw-row-suss)

If you're a keen gardener you probably know this moss already. It's common name is Lawn Moss, for good reasons. In woods and lawns it often forms dense carpets and is very easy to identify: pull up a bit and you'll see it has a bright red stem and green leaves, which are squarrose: they emerge from the stem and bend downwards.




Thuidium tamariscinum (thoo-id-ee-um tam-ah-riss-eye-num)
My personal favourite, this plant is very easy to identify. It is regularly tripinnate, meaning that the stem is symmetrical, with each branch off the stem divided into sub-branches, which are themselves further branched. In other words, it looks like a miniature fern. The stems are always green or black (if red, you've got Hylocomium splendens) and quite springy, so the little fern-like stems often arch over, like a bramble. It's common name is Tamarisk Moss.



Dicranum scoparium (die-crane-um scop-ah-re-um)
This is an upright moss, often forming dense tufts. The giveaways are the long, thin, pointed leaves, often densely packed together and turning to one side. It's common name is Fork Moss.





Sclerapodium purum (scleh-rah-podium poo-rum)
The leaves of this moss lay along the stems and branches, tightly overlapping, giving them a bloated, fat look, with blunt tips. This feature gives it it's common name: Neat Moss. It's regularly pinnate, so the branches are roughly the same on each side of the stem and they aren't sub-branched. It should have a green stem, if it's red you may be looking at Pleurozium schreberi.




Plageothecium undulatum (play-gee-oh-thee-see-um un-dew-lah-tum)
This is a very easy moss to identify. It forms loose mats of pale green, flattened stems, usually unbranched. If you look very closely at the leaves they are undulate: in other words, wavy from end to end. Hence the common name: Wavy Flat-moss.

Having got that out of my system I can go back to talking about bats...

There is unfortunately no good field guide to mosses and liverworts currently available. However, the British Bryological Society are working to rectify that. You can view the whole of their new field guide on-line (but be aware it's a work in progress): http://hosting.sleath.co.uk/bbs/

In the meantime, Carol Crawford has published a very nice guide to common woodland mosses, and it's not expensive (£6.50): Carol L. Crawford (2002) "Bryophytes of Native Woods" (3rd ed.) Natural Resource Consultancy ISBN: 0-9543795-0-0

Many thanks to Nick Hodgetts, David Chamberlain, Alex Lockton and Sarah Whild, without whom I'd still be asking "what's that little green squishy plant?" Incidentally "Right diddly-wotsit squirrelly" was my daughter's exasperated response when I tried to teach her some bryophytes...

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