Archives Month: September 2026

The River Misbourne, is a Chalk Stream in the Chilterns National Landscape with a known issue of an invasive non-native water loving plant called Floating Pennywort (Hydrocotyle ranunculoides).  It has round leaves, with a frilly edge, and a notch where the leaf stalk joins the leaf, and long trailing stems. It grows very quickly (up...

If you pick up a rock in the river, it will often feel ‘slimy’ – this coating is actually a living community of fungi, algae and bacteria known as a biofilm. Biofilms are understudied parts of chalk river ecosystems, but recent research by Erin Doyle at Cranfield University is helping to shine the light on...