Group activities

As a group, we thrive on coming together to discuss new ideas, celebrate achievements and reflect on the wider research field. See a few examples of our activities below!

PUBliCAKEtion

It’s important to celebrate our achievements, and it’s a great opportunity to come together as a group! Whether it’s a refreshing pint in one of Newcastle’s many excellent pubs and breweries, or a delectable slice of cake, we love to commemorate new publications!

A publiCAKEtion trip to Tsujiri to celebrate the publication of two papers: “Aquatic biological invasions exacerbate nutritional and health inequities” from South et al. (2025) and “Threatened endemic arthropods and vertebrates partition their diets with non-native ants in an isolated island ecosystem” from Tercel et al. (2025). Pictured are Ainsley, Mia, Ben, Jordan and Jack.
A PUBlication trip to the Town Mouse to celebrate the publication of two papers: “Bridging digestive physiology and ecology for a more integrative understanding of invertebrate predators” from Wilder et al. (2025) and “Spatio-temporal variation in diet among age and sex cohorts of a model generalist bird species, the great tit Parus major: new insights revealed by DNA metabarcoding” from Coomes et al. (2025). Pictured are Ainsley, Ben, Jordan, Jack and Mia.
Preprint pizza

Preprints are not only an excellent opportunity to share our research openly before it’s peer reviewed – they’re also an opportunity to come together and celebrate our exciting research as it starts its journey through peer review! What better way to celebrate than with pizza?!

Will with a 20″ NY cheese preprint pizza from Firestone to celebrate preprinting his PhD literature review: “Ecoacoustics for context-rich direct and indirect trophic interaction data and ecological network construction” (Dawson et al., 2025).
Away days

Sometimes what we need most (for research and for ourselves) is to step away to somewhere different for a bit! Whether it’s to one of the university’s outstations, further afield, or even just somewhere different on-campus, we have some great trips away from our normal routines!

A November 2025 ‘stayway day’ writing retreat to another part of campus, during which we focused on writing papers, chapters, reviews and more! We had some excellent discussions, excursions to nearby parks and panoramic views of the university campus. Pictured here are Lucy, Mia, Ben and Jordan.
The writing retreat involved some fun and games, including a Lego chicken game, pictured here, led by Lucy, and some rounds of our 3D-printed ‘Pest vs. Pesticide’ game. Pictured are Will, Bethan and Ben.
A February 2025 group away day to the university’s Cockle Park experimental farm ahead of many starting fieldwork there. It was chilly, but we still managed to find plenty of life in the verges! Pictured are Mia, Yiran, Rosy, Ben, Will and Jordan.
Journal club

It’s incredibly important not only to keep up with the recent literature, but also to reflect on it and discuss it together! We have regular journal clubs to discuss important papers that might change how we view or do our research.

A journal club led by Ben focused on “Nutrient addition, but not vertebrate predator exclusion, shapes arthropod communities and herbivory in a temperate forest” from Kollross et al. (2025). Pictured are Jordan, Ben and Rosy, with Mia and Jack on-screen. We really enjoyed the paper, despite our quizzical poses!
A joint journal club with the Network Ecology Group to discuss “Looking beyond Popper: how philosophy can be relevant to ecology” from Heger et al. (2025). Pictured are Mia, Will, Jack, Lucy, Tom (NEG), Ben, Matt (NEG) and Rosy.