About

Research interests

Senior Curator of Bryology, Mycology and Lichenology in the Department of Natural Sciences at Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales.

I am a plant developmental biologist with a background in natural history, having started out as a field bryologist. I am interested in land plant evolution and fungal interactions with bryophytes.

While I am interested in all bryophilous fungi, my focus is on ascomycetes that express sexual reproductive stages on their hosts. I have three specific research foci.

1. Bryophilous ascomycetes of Britain and Ireland: floristic studies, species accounts, distribution patterns. – this website is something of a draft ahead of publishing a comprehensive flora, which will take a lot of time.
2. Taxonomy and systematics of bryophilous Sordariomycetes, Eurotiomycetes and Leotiomycetes worldwide: morpho-molecular biology. – my taxonomic focus at the moment has been on these little-studied groups.
3. Diversity, evolution and function of bryophyte-fungal interactions: cell biology, influences of fungi on bryophyte development, culture-based experiments. – so far, I am collecting observations and ideas about potentially moving aspects of this research into the laboratory.

Note: this website is a summary of largely unpublished observations – there will be errors and omissions. It aims to serve as a gallery of information rather than a definitive, reviewed guide. Identifications should always be checked in the primary literature.

Acknowledgements: thank you to everybody who has contributed, both towards the website and also species identification, fieldwork and discussion over the years. It has been and continues to be a great journey. Special thanks to Dr Peter Döbbeler, without whom I would never have managed to contribute towards this exciting field of bryo-mycology.