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Siobhan Schenk

@siobhanschenk.bsky.social
433 followers 243 following 72 posts

Trying to grow nori in Northern BC PhD in Botany

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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
I'm excited to share that for this #phycologyfriday there is a new algae textbook: Advances in Temperate Phyconomy: Algal Harvest and Cultivation in Globally Distributed Temperate Waters link.springer.com/book/10.1007... I helped write chapter 24, which talks about biobanking algae and microbes
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The Kelp Rescue Initiative @kelprescue.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Kelp Rescue is excited to announce the publication of our 1st ever kelp restoration peer-reviewed paper! 🎉Since our start in 2021, we've been testing scientific approaches to kelp restoration, and this paper is the culmination of a huge team effort. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
I love #nudibranchs Found this one in a #tidepool at Sooke 🦑 #intertidal
A transparent/white nudibranch is cruising on some pink coralline algae
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psaalgae.bsky.social @psaalgae.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Exciting news! Journal of Phycology impact factor has increased to 3.4. Thanks to an amazing editorial team that makes this journal a high-quality publication. #phycologyfriday #seaweed #algae
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Varoon Supratya @varoon-supratya.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Today for #phycologyfriday: two commonly confused PNW kelps next to each other, from the same site (Whiffin Spit, BC). Left is Saccharina latissima, right Hedophyllum nigripes. #marinelife #intertidal #pnw #biology #marinebiology #science #kelp #seaweed
Two large bladed kelps lying next to one another on an eelgrass bed. The left kelp is Saccharina latissima, with a narrower and lighter colored blade and stipe, while the right kelp is Hedophyllum nigripes, with a broad dark blade A close up of the stipes of two large kelps. Saccharina on the top has a narrow rounded stipe, Hedophyllum nigripes on the bottom has a broad flattened stipe
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Halosaccion glandiforme at Whiffin Spit. This red algae fills with water, likely to prevent desiccation. 🦑 #PhycologyFriday #Intertidal #tidepools
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Pretty barnacles and sponges 🦑 #intertidal
A colony of pink sponges on the bottom of a rock. The top of the rock is colonized by barnacles
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Endless @extraunknown.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Fresh lawn fawn
A baby deer hunkered down and hiding in a freshly cut lawn. Long eyelashes and big ol ears
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
For this #PhycologyFriday I'm happy to share my ✨new paper✨ about #kelp disease -> rdcu.be/ets28 Pink-spot disease occurs in kelp nurseries across North America and Europe according to our survey and we identified a bacteria (Algicola sp.) as the likely causative agent. 🦑 #aquaculture
A very extreme and unusual presentation of pink-spot disease on a kelp spool
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Varoon Supratya @varoon-supratya.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
Lab grown stipeless bull kelp to reduce tangling in tumble culture. Removal of the stipe before the internal cavity inflates results in the cut sealing over to form a "knot" instead of the usual pneumatocyst + stipe #phycologyfriday #kelp #marinebiology #science #algae #seaweed
Three unusual looking bull kelp that lack the usual pneumatocyst and stipe
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🌻OK MR. SUNSHINE!🌻 @entobiologist.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
the new developments on inat inspired me to make a diagnostic thread for every insect order because there's only like 30something of them. going to try and avoid exceptions and extremely technical characteristics when possible. 🧵
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
I love that after I give Hawthorne head scritches, the fur on his little forehead is all messed up. It looks like he just woke up from the most intense nap. *I fix it for him as the last part of the head massage ritual. #bunny #rabbit #petpics
A grey bunny laying on his stomach in a loaf position with his front paws barely visible. The fluff in between his ears has two finger shaped indents.
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
My ✨new paper✨ looking at how low salinity and high temperatures alter the bacterial community of sugar #kelp was just published! Lab and field results agree: the overall changes are small, but core taxa decrease under abiotic stress onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #PhycologyFriday 🦑
Part of figure 1 for the paper. There is a map of the field sites and an overview of the lab experiment. Field measurements were temperature and salinity. Lab was only salinity
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Just a little orange #nudibranch cruising on a #surfgrass leaf. 🦑 #tidepools
Surfgrass and coralline algae in a tidepool with the orange nudibranch visible under the surfgrass Close up of the nudibranch
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Pike Spector (he/him) @baronvonurchin.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
Interested in learning more about innovate restoration and kelp forest ecology? Join me and Tristin as we dive deep into kelp forests and explore ways to help the kelp! #phycologyFriday #marinelife 📅 May 13 | 🕔 5–6 PM 🔗 Register: cirweb.org/calendar/kelp-forest-restoration-webinar
A virtual flyer for an online event titled, “The What, Why, and How of Kelp Forest Restoration” with Pike Spector and Tristin Anoush McHugh. The top image is of intertwined golden brown blades of giant kelp rising towards the sun lit ocean surface. The water is blue and clear. Below is the title of the talk in white letters on a green background. To the right are stacked headshots of a blonde woman above a bearded man in a red beanie
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spencer roberts 🦈 @unpopularscience.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
I will forever be haunted by this footage. Trawling has only been filmed underwater a few times in documentary history, and never with such clarity. What’s so heart-rending about these shots is watching how the animals don’t just get swept up — they swim for their lives. 🌎🦑🧪
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
They are so beautiful and I know how hard you worked to make them all!!
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Adi Khen @adlysia.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Seaweeds from Victoria, BC, Canada for #PhycologyFriday
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
For #PhycologyFriday this week let's celebrate #ISS25 and #tidepools. Although tidepools are a harsh environment, I love them because the still water makes it easier to see critters and algae 🦑
A tidepool with a crustose coralline crust, limpets, surfgrass, and some Prionitis
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Varoon and I keep finding new species after publishing our paper and he will tell you all about it at his #ISS25 poster doi.org/10.1139/cjb-... We keep updating the publicly available data linked in the manuscript with our newest survey data, so it is available for other researchers to use
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
For #PhycologyFriday I'm promoting my #ISS2025 presentations Talk) How bacteria colonize the #Kelp Saccharina latissima throughout the farming cycle P1) Low-salinity destabilizes the bacterial community of sugar kelp P2) Kelp pink-spot disease is widespread and associated with the bacteria Algicola
A cultivation line of sugar kelp 🦑
The seaweed symposium is an internal conference that combines academics and industry
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Saw this little cutie while doing the monthly transect sampling yesterday! #nudibranch 🦑
A nudibranch with orange tips and blue stripes crawling on a bed of diatoms
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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
Eastern US let's fucking goooooo We've got hundreds of millions of precious migrants pouring overhead tonight and in the next few weeks. Get those overnight lights off, cats inside, and windows treated (to prevent collisions) to keep my bird friends alive. Get ready for spectacular birding!
Screenshot of the birdcast migration dashboard, found at birdcast.info, showing a map of the continental United States colored by migration intensity, with a large portion of the eastern US, from Texas to souther Ohio, lit up white in the highest intensity color. The prediction says that 378 million birds are predicted to be in the air tonight, the night of April 28th 2025.
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 27/04/2025
A slug pretending it didn't just have a #slimemold snack. #fungifriends
Grey slug"running" away from a bumpy yellow slime mold
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
A cute slime mould (not a fungi) from a few years ago. #slimemould #fungifriends
A bright yellow slime mould on a log
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
@varoon-supratya.bsky.social and I re-used #bunny litter to grow oyster mushrooms and it worked really well. *We did not feed the #bunnies mushrooms #fungifriends #rabbit
Grey bunny looking scared of oyster mushrooms Lots of oysters growing out of a bag
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
For #PhycologyFriday this week I'm showcasing some Icelandic fucoids I saw back in 2016. 🦑
Brown algae on dark grey rocks. There is a bit of clear water left in the tide pool
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Bluesky #birder community, do you know what #bird this feather is from? I found it today in Pacific Spirit Park (BC, Canada). #ornithology #birdwatching
Tan feather with black bands.
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Drift Lessoniopsis for #PhycologyFriday. Lessoniopsis lives in very wave exposed areas. If you look closely at the stipes, you will find holes made by burrowing amphipods 🦑🧪🌊
Dark brown kelp with light brown stipes on sand. The stipes are short and woody
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
#PhycologyFriday I really like the distinct surfgrass and red algae bands, with the macro at the surface a bit further down.
Surfgrass, red algae, and brown algae on a sunny day in clear water
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Dr. Brooke Weigel @brookeweigel.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
You can always report sightings using the Living Snow Project app! But guessing this was from last spring :) wp.wwu.edu/livingsnowpr...
wp.wwu.edu
Living Snow Project – community enabled science to track snow algae blooms across mountains
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Some snow algae for #PhycologyFriday. Snow algae has a big effect on the refractive index of snow in the mountains.
Snow that is pink, not white, with some grey rocks in the background
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
#TurkeyTail #mushrooms covered with some orange #slimemold #fungifriends
Mushrooms with some moss in the background
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
Rainy season mushrooms #FungiFriends #lichen
Orange mushroom squeezing out of lichen covered barkTree branch with lichen and mossTurkey tail mushrooms on a mossy logEmpty fungi cups
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Varoon Supratya @varoon-supratya.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Antithamnionella spirographidis under a microscope. Collected at Stanley Park during a long term macroalgal survey by @siobhanschenk.bsky.social and I that was recently accepted as a paper cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1... #phycologyfriday #marinelife #intertidal #seaweed #marineecology #science
A microscopic view of a filamentous red alga called Antithamnionella spirographidis. The alga is a filament made of cylindrical cells, with a herringbone-like branching pattern and large, round and dark sporangia at the base of each branch
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Some Codium setchellii on a drift Pterygophora californica holdfast for #PhycologyFriday
Close up of the holdfast. The algae are washed up on sand.
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psaalgae.bsky.social @psaalgae.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
The Phycological Society of America is on BlueSky #algae #seaweed #phycology
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
A purple sea urchin munching on some Hedophyllum sessile for #PhycologyFriday . This was on Calvert Island. #seaurchin #kelp 🦑
A purple sea urchin munching on some Hedophyllum sessile. The tide is out, so the urchin and kelp are out of the water.
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Jeff, Stopping by Woods @jeffontherock.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Slime mold on moss. Northwest Territories, Canada. #slmemould #moss #bryophyte #fungifriends
Photo of an orange slime mold fruiting on a sprig of light green moss. The slime mold looks a bit like a mass of orange fish eggs.
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
I can't wait to see the finished product!!
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Tiny Polyneura latissima baldes and crustose coralline algae for #PhycologyFriday from a night time fieldwork expedition. There are also 2 #nudibranchs doing nothing of note and multiple #chitons if you look closely! 🦑🧪
Bubble gum pink spot of Coralline algae with dark red Polyneura blades. The nudibranchs are mostly white with yellow specs and the chitons are grey/pink. The same color as the rock
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
I fertilize my plants with poop from my two bunnies and now there are some cute little mushrooms growing in my crocodile fern. #fungifriends #fern
White mushrooms sprouting from bunny poop covered in mycelium. 
The mushrooms are small and have little indentations that look like stripes on the top
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
@varoon-supratya.bsky.social and I are celebrating #PhycologyFriday by continuing to collect data for our long-term monitoring project that is now accepted! cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1... Read it for free on BioRXiv 🦑🧪 #botany #ecology #phycology
Figure 2. Line graphs showing the mean richness of each macroalgal group by across (A) the 
entire site or (B) between 0.7 and 0.9 m chart datum. (C) The mean macroalgal percent cover 
between 0.7 to 0.9 m chart datum. Transparent ribbons represent the standard error around the 
mean. Representative images from (D) May 2023 and (E) August 2023 of the change from high 
brown algal cover, dominated by kelps, to high green algal cover, dominated by ulvoid algae. Both 
images are from transect number 3, 90 m from the seawall (0 m chart datum height).
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Reminiscing about the #sealion #skeleton @varoon-supratya.bsky.social and I found at #Sooke this summer. The #bones are definitely in the wrong spot and we did not take any home. If you know where the bones go, let me know. 🦑
The mostly free of flesh skeleton is arranged in on top of grey rocks in a "we did our best" way.

The skull is intact and on the vertebra are behind it. The ribs are laid out on one side of the vertebra line and the other "miscellaneous bones" are arranged into the two places where the flippers would be.
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STCmicrobeblog @stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
@stevestuwill.bsky.social you posted on 𝕏 on Dec 5, 2020 this stunning video - why not repeat on 🔵bsky ? (sorry, I did)... "Time-lapse footage of a vampire amoeba: a microscopic organism that feeds on algal cells by breaking through their cell walls and sucking out their insides." #ProtistsOnSky
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Varoon Supratya @varoon-supratya.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
My creative outlet is pottery, often inspired by seaweeds #phycologyfriday #phycology #kelp #marinebiology #science #art #pottery #sculpture #seaweed #ceramics
Seaweed themed ceramics arranged on a grey steel table. From left to right: two mugs with handles formed in the shape of bull kelp, a sculpture of the kelp Eisenia arborea, a pitcher with a bull kelp handle, and a mug with a Calliarthron (coralline red alga)
 handle
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Chris Neufeld @cneufeld.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
Did you know you can age some perennial kelps by counting rings just like trees? We aged populations of two species first surveyed in the '80s (by Klinger and DeWreede!) to see if their age structure had changed. Our new paper is out, just in time for #PhycologyFriday! doi.org/10.1111/jpy....
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Not sure what encrusting coralline #algae this is, but I love the texture! Whenever I find encrusting corallines on animals I always wonder how the algae affects them. In this case, better camouflage vs extra weight are some things that come to mind. #PhycologyFriday #MarineLife #Phycology
A snail covered in a very bumpy pink red encrusting coraline algae.
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Siobhan Schenk @siobhanschenk.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Check out my new pre-print about a novel #kelp disease! This research includes a kelp-grower survey (still live). 57% of respondents have seen pink-spot disease on their spools. One bacteria is associated with pink spots, a target for future research. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #MarineLife
Spools with visible pink spots.
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