Ecologist
I am deeply passionate about the ecology, evolution, and conservation of plants, fungi, oomycetes, and arthropods. I am fascinated by ecological interactions and networks, in particular antagonistic interactions like parasitism. I want to pursue research in understudied taxa, especially plant pathogens.
Peer-reviewed Publications
Dalzell, J. (2024). Contarinia dipsacearum Rübsaamen, 1921, a gall midge (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) new to Ireland and its overlooked occurrence in Britain. Irish Naturalists’ Journal, 41 (in press).
Roles (paid)
Jan 2024 – (ongoing) Botany Tutor for the BSBI on their course Identiplant: an introduction to serious botany. I mark students’ work and provide feedback.
Apr 2024 – Oct 2024 Field Botanist for the UKCEH on the Northern Ireland Countryside Survey. I did 2×2m quadrats of all vascular plants, took soil samples, and measured peat depths. I also did some habitat mapping. I had training in April and then surveyed full time 15th July – 27th September and 23rd – 25th October 2024. This included working in species-rich grassland and fen, woodland, upland heaths and bogs, lowland raised bog, and improved agricultural grassland.
Aug – Sep 2022 I spent two weeks doing botanical fieldwork funded by the BSBI as part of my Strangford Islands project (see below).
Roles (unpaid)
Sep 2024 – (ongoing) Herbarium volunteer in the Belfast Herbarium (Museums NI). I am curating the fungal collection.
June 2024 – (ongoing) Digital and Social Media Officer for Wild Belfast, an organisation that aims to connect communities in Belfast with the wildlife that lives there. I also organise botanical events.
Skills
I am passionate about science communication and run a blog where I write about my work. I have been working on communicating conservation evidence to practitioners, including a recent illustrated poster about Yellow Rattle introduction as an intervention to improve grassland plant diversity. I want to bridge the gap between science and practice in conservation. A friend and I recently made a short film documenting the plant and fungal biodiversity of a local nature reserve.
I would say one of my strongest skills is learning the features and taxonomy of large numbers of plants, fungi, and oomycetes, which has been an enormous help when doing fieldwork. A notable recent plant record was the first record of Spiranthes spiralis in Ulster. This received some minor press attention including being covered by BBC News and the BES’ The Niche.
Teaching botany is also an interest of mine – I am a tutor on the BSBI’s Identiplant course for intermediate botanists, and I also have been involved in several field days through the BSBI and Wild Belfast (a wildlife advocacy group in Belfast). In 2025 I will be running a field course for beginner botanists with Wild Belfast.
I also have developed an interest in plant-parasitic pathogens and galls and have been making an effort to record these, finding many species that are new to Ireland (thirty-eight so far, including several never recorded in Britain either). I have been encouraging others to record these groups more and have made a webpage documenting my finds. I also have been digitising the labels of specimens in the Belfast fungarium, so that these old records can be added to biodiversity databases. In 2025 I will be running two field workshops focusing on native and invasive plant pathogens in natural ecosystems.
In third year, I founded a journal club for undergrads interested in ecology and evolutionary biology. We have had a lot of interesting discussion and engaged with the literature, as well as considering how evidence should impact policy and conflicts between different stakeholders and interests should be mitigated. We have continued to meet after graduation and I hope this group will be a continual source of inspiration.
I have a good knowledge of both R and Python. I regularly use R for data analysis and visualisation, and I have experience using Generalised Linear Models, Principal Component Analysis, and other community ecology techniques. I have used Python for climate modelling as part of a university course and have also constructed a dynamic spatial species competition model. I am experienced with Microsoft Office, ImageJ, illustration in Krita and GNU Image Manipulation Program, and creating and editing websites with WordPress and HTML. I am also currently learning to make distribution maps in QGIS. I am quick to pick up new skills.
Research Projects
2022 – 2024: Plants of Strangford Islands (see poster summary here)
- I have been systematically recording the flora of islands in Strangford Lough. So far I have visited fourteen islands.
- I have begun to analyse these data from an island biogeography perspective and hope to publish my work in 2025.
- I have presented a poster on this project at a conference of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland and given a talk to the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club (available on YouTube).
2023: Dynamic spatial model of a hemiparasite and its hosts (see summary here)
- I replicated a paper from 2009 by Cameron et al., which modelled the population dynamics of Yellow Rattle, grasses, and forbs in a simulated grassland.
- I improved the visualisation of the model and the simulation of seed dispersal.
- I have published an accessible resource about the use of Yellow Rattle in species-rich grassland creation, including a figure explaining population dynamics based on the output of my model.
[University of Cambridge] November 2022 – March 2023: eDNA work with flora of Tristan da Cunha (vegetation history)
[University of Cambridge] March 2023: a three-day mini project comparing plant parasite and host physiology in a grassland in Portugal (see writeup here)
[University of Cambridge] September 2023 – January 2024: The effect of disturbance along trails on the ground flora of Danum Valley Conservation Area, Sabah, Borneo
[University of Cambridge] January 2024 – April 2024: The effects of small-scale agriculture on arthropod communities in Guinea-Bissau
- Identifying arthropods to order
- Data analysis with Generalised Linear Mixed Models
- Community ecology analysis with PCA and PERMANOVA
Education
First Class BA Natural Sciences (Zoology) at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. My third year modules were Evolution and Ecosystem Dynamics, Responses to Global Change, Evolutionary Genetics and Adaptation, and Conservation Science.
A-levels: A*A*A* in Biology, Maths, Further Maths; A in Spanish
While at University I was both a member and then captain of the Botanical University Challenge team (a general knowledge quiz about plants, with teams from universities across Britain and Ireland). In 2023 we came second, and in 2024 we won! I also spend my free time pursuing my other interests in Gaelic language and linguistics, science fiction, and kayaking.