Anna MacDonald

A black browed albatross against the waves of the Southern Ocean. Photographed from RSV Nuyina near McDonald Islands #subantarctic #MarineScience

McDonald Islands viewed from the ship - remote, steep, rocky islands rise from the southern ocean

McDonald Islands viewed from the ship - remote, steep, rocky islands rise from the southern ocean

McDonald Islands viewed from the ship - remote, steep, rocky islands rise from the southern ocean

McDonald Islands viewed from the ship - remote, steep, rocky islands rise from the southern ocean

Yesterday I got to enjoy something special. RSV Nuyina passed near the McDonald Islands. I spent time on deck in the wind, spray & swell of the Southern Ocean, watching hundreds (thousands?) of seabirds hunting for food and travelling around the islands. #volcano #subantarctic #MarineScience #eDNA

Will do 🐧 👋

It’s a small world :)

Big Ben - a snow and ice covered volcano, dominating the view of Heard Island from the ocean. Some blue sky through the clouds.

Big Ben - a snow and ice covered volcano, dominating the view of Heard Island from the helicopter deck of RSV Nuyina, with a colleague taking in the view. Some blue sky through the clouds.

Big Ben - a snow and ice covered volcano, dominating the view of Heard Island from the ocean. In this photo a glacier flowing down the mountain reaches the sea

Big Ben - a snow and ice covered volcano, dominating the view of Heard Island from the ocean.

Stunning views of Big Ben from the deck of RSV Nuyina at Heard Island. Big Ben is an active volcano and Australia’s highest peak. It’s usually swathed in cloud, but not yesterday! #subantarctic #MarineScience #eDNA

Moonrise last night, from the heli deck of RSV Nuyina at Heard Island #subantarctic #MarineScience 🧪🧬

Close up picture of me (in warm clothing) standing on the deck with sea ice behind me

Looking back along the port side of the ship, over two orange life boats, to see views of sea ice next to and behind the ship. A trail of disturbed ice shows where we came from

A large ice berg in the blue ocean, with paler blue sky and clouds behind

Sunset over the ocean, and reflected in the ship’s windows at the edge of the picture

Season’s greetings from the Southern Ocean! I’m spending the summer on RSV Nuyina collecting #eDNA samples for biodiversity surveys 🌊❄️🐧🧬🚢🇦🇶 #antarctica

Striking shifts in the timing of bryophyte spore dispersal: What 35 years of airborne DNA revealed about climate change Fia Bengtsson, Lund University and Norwegian Institute of Nature Research, discusses her article: Rapid shifts in bryophyte phenology revealed by airborne eDNA Most of us walk past mosses and liver…

very interesting work on mosses in the arctic and their change in spore dispersal over time - also an important argument why we need long term monitoring programs #eDNA #consgen 🧪🌏🦤
jecologyblog.com/2025/11/18/s...

🌊 🐟🦭🐋🐧 I have a PhD position available (4 years, start Mid-2026) at NRM Stockholm to work on the macrogenomics of sea warming.

Apply here:

recruit.visma.com/spa/public/a...

#PhD #MarineGenomics #ClimateChange #EvolutionaryBiology #PopGen #Bioinformatics #conservationgenomics

Happy solstice! This is my longest longest day ever ☀️#Antarctica

🧬 DNA from a biopsy sample taken from a surfacing beaked whale with a modified crossbow confirms these specimens as ginkgo-toothed beaked whales (mesoplodon ginkgodens), a species never (knowingly) seen alive. #consgen 🦊

Sorry but no!

This is a selfie of me in my bright green jacket, standing on the heli deck of RSV Nuyina. There is distant land (southern Tasmania) in the background, across the water. The deck has “NUYINA” written in large white letters behind me.

So long Hobart, see you in February! I’m on board Australia’s icebreaker RSV Nuyina, heading south for the summer to collect environmental DNA samples to study biodiversity. We left yesterday afternoon, heading to Casey Station in #Antarctica and then Heard Island ❄️ 🐧 🧬 #eDNA

The evolutionary genomics of life-history adaptations in pinnipeds - Yorkshire Environmental Sciences • Doctoral Training Network Project summary Pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, fur seals and walrus) are keystone marine predators, and sentinels for marine ecosystem health. Advances in genomic technology open up the possibility to u...

New PhD studentship opportunity in my lab & with collaborators from the Pinniped Genomes Consortium. Come help us unravel the genomics of seal physiological super powers! Closing date 7th January 2026 🧪🦭🧬🌍🦑🐳 #marine #mammals
#consgen #popgen #phylo #molevol #evolution
yes-dtn.ac.uk/research/the...

Hybrids Along a Natural‐Anthropogenic Gradient: Improving Policy and Management Across All Levels of Biodiversity Hybridization has long been a central topic in evolution and conservation. Recent developments in genomics have increased the ability to detect hybridization, defined here as breeding between species....

We have another publication out! 🎉🎉🎉
“Hybrids along a natural–anthropogenic gradient: improving policy and management across all levels of biodiversity.”
We explore how to deal with hybrids in conservation — scientifically and practically. A thread 🧵
conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This is 💙 Science & Fiction 💙 where scientific results & fictional stories intersect.

A space for people who like to a) learn about #science & b) read exciting fictional stories ✨

🇬🇧 www.scienceandfiction.net
🇩🇪 www.scienceandfiction.net/de

Support: ko-fi.com/scienceandfi...

#scicomm #wisskomm

Fish environmental DNA is more concentrated in aquatic sediments than surface water Genetic identification of aqueous environmental DNA (eDNA) provides site occupancy inferences for rare aquatic macrofauna that are often easier to obt…

DNA in sediments tells a longer story!
New research shows sedimentary #eDNA can persist up to 132 days & be up to 1800x more concentrated than in water.

What do you think about this?

tinyurl.com/mtr947tn

#Genomics #Biodiversity #Conservation

PhD opportunity: improving #eDNA methods to better understand estuarine health.

A collaborative university-government project to provide solutions and improve the management of estuaries in Australia.

sednasociety.com/2025/10/10/p...

Genetic diversity is key to a nature‐positive future Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

why we need genetic diversity
new paper out #consgen 🧪🦤🌏
doi.org/10.1002/pan3...

Picture of cover page of the biobanking guidelines for conservation with title author list and four images of a fern, frog, cryotubes and a seastar

what is biobanking about? find our more in these guidelines just published today 🌏🦤🧪
They are freely available and can be downloaded here:
portals.iucn.org/library/site...
#consgen

For the first time this Spring, NOAA adopted eDNA into a formal stock assessment of Pacific Hake and this was supported by the Scientific Review Group for the Pacific Fisheries Management Council.

www.fisheries.noaa.gov/s3/2025-03/2...

Portrait of a dog in the kitchen, looking happy and expectant and optimistic that she will get some cheese

“Cheese?”

Gorgeous :)

I mean look at this

It is her trademark. I think it’s a malamute size tongue in a kelpie size face!

Two husky type dogs, one wolf grey and one black and white, standing on a train in the forest with green trees behind. Both dogs look happy

A little more dog spam, Sakura and Syra enjoying a forest walk 🐾 🐾
#RescueDog #AdoptDontShop

Our other (slightly younger) old lady Syra is a kelpie-husky-malamute mix and she does like to run with me. Never tried her with a sled but I reckon she’d have been speedy when she was younger!

I think she’d have a threshold where she’s just stop and sulk! Never had the heart to test it ;)

What a lovely old sled dog. You can see the age and wisdom. Would steal my heart too!

Definite similarity :) Sakura is part Labrador though, and always more interested in cheese than running long distances!