Biodiversity Shorts – Live Webinars

Date and time: Tuesday 22nd July 2025, 7pm – 8pm

Mushrooms, or more precisely, fungi are all around us all the time. Learn how they shape our environment, help to feed us and affect or lives in numerous ways.

What You’ll Learn

This talk will explain some of the wildly different forms and lifestyles that different species have evolved into and the niches that they fill. In particular, it will cover some of the fungi you may commonly see anywhere in the UK and what they are doing for us there.

This webinar will include: 

• Examples of forms and lifestyles of fungi.
• Examples of habitat niches utilized by fungi.
• Examples of commonly encountered UK fungi species.

The Tutor

Chris Knowles is both an ecologist and a consultant field mycologist, carrying out fungus surveys for a variety of clients. He is also an active member of his local fungus group and the recorder for Edinburgh & Lothians.

Date and time: Tuesday 7th October 2025, 7pm – 8pm

It is wonderful that statutory agencies have learned to work with citizen science networks to gather vital and affordable data needed to inform critical decisions.

What You’ll Learn

As a highly successful regional citizen science charity working nationally and internationally, the Seal Research Trust have lots of top tips, strategies and advice about setting up, running and most importantly sustaining such networks over the long term to achieve the greatest benefits. We all need to work smarter and learn from each other’s experience to maximise our outputs for nature.

This webinar will include:

• Considerations when setting up citizen science surveys.
• Strategies and advice when implementing a citizen science survey.

The Tutor

Sue Sayer is an internationally renowned researcher and author. For over 20 years, she has spent thousands of hours observing seals in the wild from land and at sea in Cornwall. To Sue, there is no such thing as an average seal. Each one looks different, has an individual personality, range of habits and migration route around the Celtic Sea! In 2000, Sue founded the Seal Research Trust in Cornwall.

Date and time: Wednesday 22nd October 2025, 7pm-8pm

An incredible range and number of fossil-bearing rocks and amazing prehistoric remains can be found in the British Isles. Regarded by many as the birthplace of paleontology, its geology allows us to explore the life of the past from the ice-ages (Quaternary) right back to the Cambrian, over 300 million years ago.

What You’ll Learn

This webinar will take a journey back into the prehistoric past, looking at key fossils, where they are found, how they are formed and what they can tell us about the environment at the time. There will also be plenty of practical information about safe and responsible fossil collection.

So, if you would like to learn about bone caves filled with ancient mammals, where to find fossil shark teeth, how the spiral-shelled ammonites help to date sedimentary rocks, the fascinating biology of trilobites and where to find dinosaurs, please join us!

This webinar will include:

• Example of fossils and where they are found in the British Isles.
• Fossil formation.
• How fossils can indicate prehistoric environmental conditions.
• Best practice for safe and responsible fossil collection.

The Tutor

With a degree in geology, and a lifelong interest in paleontology, our biodiversity  tutor David Willis, grew up collecting fossils near his home. Currently working amidst the chalk hills of the Chilterns, he is enthusiastic about citizen science and getting people out and about, exploring our natural heritage.

Date and time: Tuesday 28th October 2025, 7pm-8pm

The British uplands are a patchwork of distinctive and often dramatic landscapes, each with its own unique character, ecology, and wildlife. Shaped over centuries by altitude, climate, soil, and human activity, these areas support a rich and varied biodiversity that reflects their complex histories and conditions.

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar, Richard will guide us through these landscapes using eight iconic plant species, each strongly associated with a particular upland habitat. These species act as ecological signposts, helping you quickly identify the type of environment you’re in.

Whether you’re out in the field or simply curious about what makes the UK’s uplands so special, this session will give you a practical and engaging way to recognise key habitats: hill, heath, moor, and bog.

Let’s begin our journey into these wild and wonderful places and meet the plants that help define them.

This webinar will include:

• Types of upland habitats.
• Examples of eight of plants associated with upland habitats.
• The types of upland habitats indicated by given plant species.

The Tutor

Richard has worked as an ecologist and wildlife guide in Northern England for the past six years. He is currently part of the team at the Hepple Wilds rewilding project in Northumberland, which manages over 2,000 acres of former grouse moor, including heathland and blanket bog.

Date and time: Friday 7th November 2025, 7pm-8pm

Lowland heaths are one of the UK’s most distinctive and threatened habitats, shaped over centuries by human activity and natural processes. Found primarily in southern and eastern England, these open landscapes of heather, gorse, and sandy soils are home to a rich diversity of rare wildlife.
Despite their ecological importance, lowland heaths face growing pressure from development, neglect, and climate change.

What You’ll Learn

Join us in this webinar to explore the unique characteristics of this habitat, its conservation challenges, and the vital work being done to protect and restore these irreplaceable ecosystems.

This webinar will include:

• Differentiating lowland heaths from other habitat types.
• The value of England’s lowland heaths for biodiversity in a national and international context.
• Examples of wildlife associated with lowland heaths in England.
• Overview of habitat management practices involved in restoring lowland heathlands for target species.

The Tutor

Aaron is a post-doctoral researcher in the Geography, Earth and Environmental Science department at the University of Birmingham, where he conducts studies on urban pollinator communities as part of PhD research into bees and wasps in Britain.

He is currently working with Natural England and the Wildlife Trust to monitor heathland pollinators in the West Midlands.