Zoe Xirocostas

Me too :)

Thanks Issy :)

A person amongst grass-like vegetation putting small bags on plants to collect seeds.

An image of a mesh bag placed over a shrub with spiky leaves. A label on the bag reads “DO NOT REMOVE - RESEARCH”.

A flannel flower with white petals and a small beetle sitting in the middle of the inflorescence.

Two brown hemipterans mating with their abdomens touching. They are standing on top of a bright green leaf.

Some snaps from the field today in Heathcote National Park on Dharawal land 🌱

A striking orchid flower with green and burgundy petals and a distinctive dark red-brown labellum (lip) covered in fine, hair-like projections. The flower grows on a slender green stem among tall grass-like foliage, with a soft, blurred natural background.

Saw a red beardie yesterday (YES that's really one of its common names!!!) - or for the scientifically inclined, Calochilus paludosus🧔‍♂️❗

Ahh thanks for letting me know Ros!

Spotted this big fella while teaching in the Blue Mountains with @ecologybrad.bsky.social

Awesome! Congrats Suz and team!

You nailed it Inna! Thanks for sharing your research with us. Our students wouldn’t stop raving about your seminar afterward :)

🐝🌸 With climate change, many organisms are shifting their ranges, but some are shifting in the opposite direction to what we expect.
Insightful and entertaining seminar by Inna Osmolovsky @innaosmol.bsky.social on "Climate Change and Shifting Interactions: Where Do Species Go from Here?"

It was such an honour to present my research at UTS! Thank you to @zoexiro.bsky.social and @ecologybrad.bsky.social for the invitation and to everyone who came to listen to my talk 🌿

🌱 New research from The Australian PlantBank reveals how 4 threatened Australian Grevillea species respond to temperature changes. Good news, 3 species show resilience to future warming, but G. iaspicula prefers cooler conditions & may struggle with climate change.

Read more 🔗 buff.ly/b4pbbgv

The "living fossil" Wollemi pine🌲can self-fertilise! New research from #CharlesSturtUni shows this critically endangered conifer produces viable seeds without cross-pollination - which helps explain their low genetic diversity in natural systems 🧬

Open access paper 🔗 buff.ly/l3yG5Rt

Spent the past month in Greece 🇬🇷 on holiday and visiting family. But surprised to see so many reminders of Aus (Eucalypts) planted on so many islands! (could they be contributing to the wildfires Greece is being ravaged by? So many questions!)

Images of the chamber and active heating system. (a) Annotated detail image of the heating system, electrical components, and chambers (not to scale). Field photos from Mt. Hotham, VIC, Australia (Case study 1): (b) two polycarbonate chambers attached via black ducting to one heating system under a tarpaulin for protection from the weather; and (c) side view of a chamber with its semi-enclosed, overhanging lid with adjustable portholes, circulating fans, and Stevenson screen housing thermocouples. (d) Field photo from Perisher Valley, NSW, Australia (Case study 2). The heating system attached to three chambers showing improved insulative ducting and open tent protecting and ventilating the heating system. Note that chamber lids are transparent like the chamber sides but appear grey due to reflections of cloud cover.

📖Published📖

Arnold et al. propose a design that will allow ecologists to simulate more realistic heat events in the field by combining a controllable convection heater system with a semi-enclosed chamber with adjustable vents 🌍 🧪

buff.ly/k2GJSA2

A HIDDEN SABOTEUR: Pilostyles hamiltoniorum is a parasitic plant that lives INSIDE its host, only revealing itself through tiny flowers on the stems.
New research shows this endoparasite slashes flower production by 52% in its host plants, despite being almost invisible!
OA paper ➡️ buff.ly/gArS9tO

Hot off the press 🌱🔥

A fire in dry sclerophyll forest in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney (New South Wales, Australia).

🔥🌱 From the #AJB Special Issue: “Understanding novel #fire regimes using plant trait‐based approaches" 🌱🔥

Toward a macroevolutionary understanding of live-leaf flammability in plant species of fire-prone #forests

By @ecologybrad.bsky.social, @zoexiro.bsky.social, et al.

doi.org/10.1002/ajb2...

Congrats Inna! and thank you for the invitation to collaborate :)

Counterintuitive Range Shifts May Be Explained by Climate Induced Changes in Biotic Interactions Climate change is expected to drive species uphill, poleward or into deeper waters. Yet many are shifting in toward the equator, downhill or to shallower waters, which is opposite to the expected dir...

🌎 My first paper is out in @globalchangebio.bsky.social ! We propose the Interaction Opportunists Hypothesis: changes in biotic interactions may drive species downhill, equatorward, or to shallower waters under #ClimateChange. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #RangeShifts #Ecology

This title 🤌

Ooh! This will be so useful for species selection for my upcoming fieldwork :)

Oh cool! Wasn’t expecting to get that right as a plant ecologist. Best of luck with the trapping!

Mammal trapping perhaps?

Our paper on unifying theory around biodiversity–consumer relationships (pathogens & herbivores) is now out in TREE!

I hope it helps those navigating the forest of theories & hypotheses in this space to see more clearly 🤓

Check out @fletcher-h.bsky.social great summary of the paper here 👇

Our paper on the integration of biodiversity-disease and biodiversity-herbivore relationships is out now! Thanks to @idiv-research.bsky.social for supporting us through #sDiv working group funding to bring together two typically disparate fields in ecology! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Towards an integrative mechanistic framework for biodiversity–consumer relationships Terrestrial plant diversity plays a pivotal role in influencing the abundance, diversity, and impacts of herbivores and pathogens (collectively, plant…

As a special Earth Day gift, our new paper integrating decades of related, but siloed research on how changing biodiversity drives plant disease and herbivory is out today in TREE www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Thanks to @idiv-research.bsky.social for supporting our sConsume working group!

Happy #EarthDay everyone 🌍 🌱 from a gloomy yet hopeful Sydney 🌈

Research Available Honours Projects Exploring the reproductive ecology and cross-compatibility of two colour variants of Lantana camara Supervisor/s: Dr Zoe Xirocostas & Dr Yvonne Davila Lantana camara,…

Hey y'all! I have a few ecology honours projects available in Sydney starting either in Spring 2025 or Autumn 2026.

Project details available at: zoexiro.com/research/
Please share widely 🌼

Very surprised to see things still flowering so late in the season but made my walk much brighter 🌸

(1. Crowea saligna, 2. Epacris longiflora, 3. Acacia terminalis, 4. Giant aerial termite mound?)

Sid put us all to shame this week. The hardest working of us all hehe