In #limnology this week, we learned about lake #stratification thanks to food coloring, heat lamps, hair dryers, and lots of ice! #lakemodels are fun!

Prickly pear fruit on campus #cactus

Can you #FindThatLizard You're searching for a hatchling side-blotched lizard, Uta stansburiana. My undergraduate professor always called the baby lizards ecological popcorn because everything eats them, including snakes, birds, mammals, and even other lizards.

A moment in the pond with fish, painted turtles and a curious snapping turtle. 💚

#Equisetum cones on campus earlier this summer #ferns #horsetails

All of these #Botany2026 posts have convinced me that I need to find a way to attend a meeting. #plantpeopleftw

Excited to host the 2026 Great Plains Limnology Conference with @streambug.bsky.social Oct 16-18. Great opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and professionals to present their latest findings on regional aquatic ecology. Registration is open! sites.google.com/view/gplc-20...

GPLC 2026

Logo designed by Kadence Schaecher

sites.google.com

Happy Thursday! Here’s a pretty skipper on a pretty flower🌼 Their name comes from how they fly…rapidly darting from flower to flower #Hesperiidae #Rudbeckia

Went to Laurinburg NC for my dear uncle’s celebration of life. My uncle was an educator who made a mark. RIP uncle T. Of course I found a body of water in town filled with macrophytes! Turns out my aunt loves to take their dog on walks there. #MacrophyteMonday #cypress #waterlilies

Spiderworts bloom in the morning and by afternoon the flowers shrivel up. I noticed that flowers in the shade stay open a little bit longer than those in full sun. #Tradescantia #WildflowerHour

Happy Friday! Look what I found while walking around the yard after some morning rain. These are fluted bird’s nest fungi ( #Cyathus striatus). They look like miniature bird’s nest with eggs. The “eggs” are spore sacs that eject millions of spores when raindrops hit them! Source: Wikipedia #fungi

What’s happening to our Rudbeckia (black-eyed Susan) plants? Only thing I could find in a Google search was that this could be Aster yellows? #rudbeckia #coneflower #blackeyedsusan #asteraceae

Algae are so fascinating! 💚

Dr Astrid Biddle@astridbiddle.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Algal succession in a New Forest stream. First came the Planktothrix isothrix bloom (not good). Then Cladophora glomerata. Now Characium sp. colonising the Cladophora. Even in drought, these streams remain remarkably dynamic, with one community paving the way for the next. #phycology

Learning about Tamarix spp. (salt cedar) at #APMS2026 in Phoenix Az. This plant has replaced native species as the water table has been lowered due to water use exceeding replenishment. Tamarix accumulates and deposits salt in the soil. So interesting! www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/...

Found these in one of our ecojars. Is this #cyanobacteria? Sorry no scale. Ecojars = lake water + aquatic plants +algae + various inverts

Often #algae gets a bad rap. Let’s highlight some positive things about algae! Besides being a great oxygen source, what else is great about algae? Last month, we observed algae acting as a raft for this frog (according to Seek, this is Blanchard’s cricket frog - Acris blanchardi).

It’s plant buying…rescue season!! I got an awesome bonus plant! There was liverwort growing in the pots with my rescued plants!!! Seek says Marchantia polymorpha (common liverwort). #liverwort #bryophyte

#watercress (Nasturtium officinale) growing in a spring in the woods #macrophytemonday #ozarks #springs

Course eval comment for my Aquatic Botany course: “I loved all the field trips and raiding the herbarium!” Love love that students enjoyed using the herbarium!

Looking for a paid summer research experience? Apply to MSU’s Extreme Biofilms REU and work on cutting-edge biofilm science in extreme environments. No prior research experience needed. #MicroSky #PhageSky

Join us at 7pm tomorrow 16 Dec for a webinar on #NewYearPlantHunt: Citizen Science in a Changing Climate. We'll cover what the Plant Hunt is, where & when it happens, who takes part, how it works - and why it's important. Join us to get ready for your Hunt: www.tickettailor.com/events/botan...

Chocolate tube slime mold on a sprig..of moss. Stemonitis sp. NWT, Canada. Slime mold is about 2cm wide. #slime #myxo #fungifriends

In my quest to learn more about conjugation in Spirogyra, I found this cool video! #spirogyra #algae youtu.be/O9v-xj2fjQI?...

Time-Lapse: Sexual Attraction in Spirogyra by Dr. Jeremy Pickett-Heaps

YouTube video by Evident Microscopy

youtu.be

We’re nurturing bright young minds across St. Louis and helping students discover their love of science. 🧪 By donating to our Impact Fund, you can support the next generation of innovators. Make your gift today: bit.ly/3WWUKjD #STEM #STL

So, instead I grow plants, study them, take photos of them, teach, and read good stories. Here’s a meaningful sentence I just read for these wicked times: “So many people go through life without love.” From Zoe’s Tale. Thanks, John Scalzi.

My #butterwort has some happy plant friends 😁 #ferns #moss #carnivorousplants

The sun has been putting on quite the show this week 🌅

This is beautiful but what is it? Filamentous algae from Lake Springfield MO (reservoir on the James River). Notice the spiraling chloroplasts in the second image. #algae Photo credits: @tessapk0408.bsky.social

Ceratophyllum demersum (coontail) enjoying the sunshine 🌞 They are quite happy in our ecojars. I am looking for larger containers to culture them in our greenhouse for a project. Any suggestions? I have tried 5-gallon Lowe’s buckets but the plants do not survive probably due to light limitations.

Last week in #limnology I realized I could mirror what I was seeing on the fancy scope onto the tv screens in our new teaching lab. This brought me so much joy🤩 This is #micrasterias The bilateral symmetry and the clear separation (isthmus) between the semi-cells is a characteristic of #desmids