Bumblebee Hunting in Belmullet, Co. Mayo (Mayo for Sam!)New!!
By Sarah Browne, Research Assistant in Botany, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin Long Read Figure 1. The GYB hunters: from left to right: Julia, Kilian, Jane, Harry, Catherine, Elena, Dave, Irene, Fern, Irene, Sarah B, Moya, and Sarah L. First and foremost, a big congratulations to Mayo for breaking the curse and winning […]
Monitoring Bottlenose Dolphins in Cardigan Bay
By Rebecca Schouten, Zoology PhD student I’m Rebecca and I’m a new PhD student at Trinity, aiming to assess the impacts of Spartina anglica and opportunities for its management and control. Before starting my PhD, I was the research assistant and intern coordinator for the 2026 season at Sea Watch Foundation (SWF) and coming to […]
What Does a Research Assistant Do?
Research assistants (RA) are the backbone to many projects happening inside the departments of Botany and Zoology. Their roles can vary from fieldwork data collection for PhD and Master's students. Assisting professors in long established or new projects. Working in the labs on varying tasks from robotics, to soil analysis to plant and animal identification. […]
Native Oyster Restoration in Action
By Brian Huxley, Zoology PhD student My fieldwork is focused on the species Ostrea edulis, the European flat oyster as part of the BRICONS project (Building Resilient Irish Coastlines through Oyster Restoration). The core aim of this project is to restore O. edulis across Ireland, specifically in Dublin port and Belfast port, as well as […]
World Bee Day at Trinity College Dublin
By Moya Owens. Research Assistant | ANTENNA Project| Department of Botany All at Trinity celebrating World Bee Day. To celebrate World Bee Day 2026, we organised a Pollinator Workshop focusing on the monitoring efforts that are being carried out by researchers at Trinity and the National Biodiversity Centre. Professor. Jane Stout introduced the workshop, emphasising […]
The Next Chapter
By Dr Niamh McCartan, Zoology PhD graduate Hi, I’m Niamh! It’s been 11 months since I defended my PhD, and that time has absolutely flown. After almost ten years of studying, I knew I needed a proper break, even if I wasn’t quite sure what would come next. During my PhD, supervised by Pepijn Luijckx, […]
Editor Introduction - Eleanor Lampard
2nd year PhD Student in Botany. Carbon dioxide tracker and nature adventurer. Hi, I'm Eleanor, and I am currently studying in Dr. Matthew Saunders plant ecophysiology lab. I look at carbon budgets in managed grassland systems on mineral soils in Ireland. Essentially I look at how much carbon dioxide is being released or sequestered and […]
Lichens: The quiet witnesses of an ever-changing planet
By Ryan Brennan (Research Assistant in Botany and lichen enthusiast) rybrenna@tcd.ie. My first ever encounter with the Lilliputian world of lichens was when I was aroundfourteen years old. Our biology class was covering the binomial system of namingorganisms. The lesson began with differentiating kingdoms and working our waydown to species. I remember raising my hand […]
The 2026 Botany & Zoology Symposium
By co-editors Eleanor Lampard & Aoife Molloy And we’re finishing off the academic term with our annual botany and zoology symposium. This year we had topics ranging from the shift in plant chemistry, to the impact of artificial light on nocturnal pollinators. With 34 presenters, we had a jam packed audience over the two days. […]
Editor Introduction - Aoife Molloy
After a short hiatus, EcoEvo will be back up and running for the next year. Firstly, a massive thank you to the previous Editors, Dr Niamh McCartan and Josua Seitz! Wishing them the best of luck and we'll hopefully hear from them in future blog posts. Aoife Hi everyone! I'm Aoife Molloy, a first year […]