Ask the Ecologist
Written by Alexander Greco
I’ve been wicked excited about talking with Milica Bojovic, an Ecologist from Serbia, who’s made an Instagram and Substack following from their ecology knowledge. Their wealth of knowledge is tremendous, from ecological succession to agricultural machine learning, with a focus on symbiotic fungal growth. My particular interest in her work spanned from agricultural applications to ecological changes, and her involvement with Industry 4.0. Despite a thorough conversation with Milica, we only scratched the surface of these topics and more. However, with the conversation we did have, I’m wicked grateful for her time.
Without further ado, here is my interview with Milica Bojovic of “Ask the Ecologist”, from Serbia.
What should people know about you and what you do?
My name is Milica Bojović. I have a master’s degree in Ecology and Environmental Protection from the University of Belgrade. I come from and am currently based in Belgrade, Serbia. The project that I am working on is Ask the Ecologist (@ask.the.ecologist on Instagram and Substack) where I aim to answer questions about ecology and nature in order to increase people’s knowledge on these topics and foster understanding and love for our environment. Apart from my online presence I do workshops, give speeches and I have a paper published in a scientific journal :
https://cpb.bio.bg.ac.rs/arhiva/pdf/CPB2601025K.pdf
How did you get started?
My first real contact with science communication was towards the end of high school when I started writing articles for EkoBlog (no longer available online) about biology, ecology and nature. Soon after I co-founded an NGO Movement SPREMMA that focused on educating youth and teaching them the right skills and knowledge for Industry 4.0. There I did everything from pitching ideas for educational programs like EDU 4.0 to writing the curriculum, creating workshops and teaching them with my colleagues. We organized conferences and case studies as well. My work for EkoBlog, later turned into co-hosting their podcast, EkoPod.
EDU 4.0 is a specific program directed at providing students with education regarding Industry 4.0 and practical applications of Industry 4.0 technologies across all affected industries and knowledge bases.
Students are taught the foundational knowledge of their subjects in conjunction with the foundational knowledge of new and changing industries and technologies. The goal is standard education of a subject, the practical education of new technology and work environment, and the skills to adapt to changes in technology, economy and the workforce.
EDU 4.0 was an educational program aimed at high school students in Belgrade, Serbia, created by Movement SPREMMA, a youth education NGO. The aim of this program was to teach youth necessary knowledge and skills for Industry 4.0 through a series of 3-hour long workshops. Workshop themes ranged from physics and electrotechnical engineering to ecology to 3D printing and bionic robots to wellbeing and public speaking.
As a board member and a Vice-President of the NGO, I contributed heavily through the whole process of creating the idea of this program, planning and finally executing workshops. The ones I taught were either on the topic of biology/ecology or some soft skills like wellbeing and public speaking.
Can you tell me about your background with ecology and what you would like people to know about your background?
I like to joke that it was obvious even as a little child that I would one day become an ecologist, just that my parents had no idea what ecology was. One of the first stories that illustrate that, is when I decided to do a census (count the whole population) of snails in my local park. I chose snails because they were slow enough that when I left them on the stone bench and ran to find more, they wouldn’t move too far, and I could just put them back a little and properly count them all.
For the lack of knowledge of what ecology was and abundance of love for nature, I started stirring myself towards biology. I went to school competitions; I was a member of Regional center for talented youth and chose to do biology there.
It was my high school biology professor, to whom I owe a lot, that recognised that ecology would suit me the best. He was smart enough to not tell it to me straight away, but to assign me a task that made me fall in love with ecology. He told me to go on WWF and read about coral bleaching. Very soon I realised what ecology (and environmental protection) was and when the time to choose which major to enroll I knew I would study ecology. So I did, for 5 years (4 year bachelors and 1 year masters).
Can you tell me what about ecology is crucial to you—what are your favorite topics?
I always gravitated more towards plants and other sessile (immobile, attached) organisms.
Their adaptations have always been very interesting because it usually interlinks a lot of knowledge if you try understanding it fully. Nonetheless, my utmost favourite topic is mycorrhiza. Mycorrhiza is the symbiosis between plant roots and fungi. It is the most common type of symbiosis and over 85% of plants are a part of it. It is mutualistic, meaning both parties benefit from this union. It is usually facultative (not necessary) for plants to survive but they grow bigger if they participate, whereas it is usually obligatory (mandatory) for fungi. That is the reason why truffles can’t be grown, since they require symbiosis with trees to grow as mycorrhizal fungi.
The study of fungus is a vast driver of research, and what we’ve learned about fungus has been tremendously eye-opening.
Fungus—responsible for decomposition and the nutrient cycles of ecosystems—is capable of cleaning and mediating ecosystems, even breaking down plastics and toxins, and is a major component to agriculture. Fungal networks have been studied for their cognitive abilities, with the capacity to learn, make decisions and transmit signals, even without a traditional nervous system.
While the science and applications of fungus are still being researched, many current applications include:
- Eco-friendly materials
- Smart materials
- Biofuels
- Enzymes and biotechnology that break down toxins
- Hybrid electrical-biological materials
The specific study of mycorrhiza is the study of how plants and fungus develop mutualistic symbiosis, and the resulting effects of this relationship. This relationship can be used to increase nutrient uptake, soil health, and the survivability of crops.
The start of the mycorrhizal relationship resembles a parasitic attack. Fungal hyphae penetrate the root and (depending on the type of mycorrhiza) nest between the root cells or penetrate their walls, but never the cell membrane. This way the site of exchange is formed. At this site, water and nutrients will go from a fungus to the plant and sugars will be given by the plant to the fungus.
There is no difference in how they form regardless of human intervention. If fungal spores are present in the soil there is a chance for mycorrhiza to occur, no matter if they got there naturally or were added by humans.
I already mentioned mycorrhiza as one of my favourite topics and I always try to include it as much as possible. Another fascination of mine is ecological succession, which is a process of one ecosystem transitioning into the other over time. So technically all lakes are trying to become forests, although not all of them will get that far. I wrote an article about it on Substack (https://asktheecologist.substack.com/p/ecological-succession-and-natures?r=6m2tnu)
How can Mycorrhizal relationships help with environmental/conservation efforts and agricultural applications?
They can help plants be more resilient to drought, nutrient deficiency, especially in acidic and wet soils (ericoid mycorrhiza is a perfect example of that). This is especially important since we have a growing number of depleted soils. It is also very useful in agriculture since it can not only lower the need for fertilisers, but also allow less of the runoff to go into the aquatic ecosystems. This means that there is less carbon footprint – fertiliser production requires a lot of energy; slower eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems – nutrient runoff from fields fuels ecological succession in water and promotes harmful algal blooms which can result in massive fish and animal death and poisoned drinking water systems.
Can you tell me a bit more about Ecological Succession?
Ecological succession is a process in which over time one ecosystem is succeeded by another. It is a natural progression in the world, and although real big changes are observed after years, decades and in some cases even thousands of years, we can still see differences in some faster changing ecosystems even from one year to the other. The driver of this change is living and non-living elements of one ecosystem all working together, doing their own thing which results in this unstoppable constant transformation.
New environmental conditions will mean change in community and set of species creating new ecosystems completely. But there is a pattern to this transformation. We start from some sporadically covered rocks, then we have a field, shrubs and bushes and in the end a luscious forest. The final form that the objective conditions allow for is called climax community.
The conversation here could have gone on forever, however, there were a number of topics I wanted to at least establish the fundamentals of with this article, beginning with Industry 4.0.
How does Industry 4.0 apply to ecology?
I think that AI and ML (machine learning) can be very useful in ecology. Here I am not talking about chat bots or generative AI in general, I am talking about local models developed for specific data analysis purposes. Ecology offers big data we can work with and thanks to sensor development we are constantly gathering more data ML and AI models can be useful in analysing that data and giving better predictions and more insight.
Machine learning utilises learning algorithms to determine patterns and create models that will constantly test environments, inputs, data sets, and getting feedback. With agriculture, some of the benefits are obvious—studying large amounts of data and information models, predictive and optimization models.
Machine learning, in an agricultural setting, can help with:
- Monitoring plant health
- Optimizing strains of plants, environment, exact soil composition, and growth
Predict yields, market shifts, weather changes, blights, droughts and soil health
What is the future of the 4th Industrial Revolution, with agriculture?
In agriculture, robots are used on the fields to aid farmers and allow them to do their job more easily. Drones, sensors coupled with AI and robotic hands that can delicately pick plants exactly when the time is right; Better calculations on how much fertiliser is necessary based on all that collected data, leading to less field run off into rivers, lakes and many more are great benefits of industry 4.0 in agriculture.
These topics are at the forefront of some of the most important scientific and technological changes of today’s industrial landscape. The quest for alternative fuels keeps ecologists searching for enzymes, and byproducts of decomposition and metabolization from fungi as a fuel source. The cure to pollution and toxic waste across the environment has led many scientists to potentially rely on fungal materials as a way to remove toxic waste, and fungi is a consistent component of agriculture.
The use of fungi as a biofuel stems from the creation of hydrocarbons. Fungi feed directly on cellulose (like wheat straw or woodchips) and convert it into fuel. A number of these create direct hydrocarbons, decomposing organic matter with mycelium networks generates a renewable biogas mixture of methane and carbon dioxide, which can be captured for heat and electricity.
Fungus is currently being utilised for mycoremediation. Mycoremediation removes oil, hydrocarbons, plastics, heavy metals, and even pesticides from soil and water.
Closer to practical, day-to-day uses, the use of fungus and fungal symbiotic relationships are utilised for crops. Fungus provides more access to water and nutrients for plants, develop a symbiotic exchange with the crop, and break down waste in the soil.
These, in conjunction with the advances of computation, drones and sensors, and machine learning, are at the forefront of modern agriculture, energy technology and ecology.
What do you do day to day to develop an audience?
I have had previous experience with building an audience on Instagram, however, it wasn’t nearly as successful as this one. Partially, the issue came from the fact that all my previous endeavors were in my native Serbian, so the potential audience was much smaller than it is now, when I am speaking in English.
I knew from the beginning that for this project I wanted to go to multiple platforms and diversify formats. Luckily, I realised within the first two weeks that starting fresh on so many platforms at the same time is exhausting, so I decided to focus for 3 months on each. I chose Instagram as the first one, since I was most familiar with it.
I started with a 20 video series where I would post about symbiosis every other day. Although the series didn’t go viral, I had a big topic that made consistent content much easier. After the first three months passed I went from less than 100 to 10K followers. Now I am focusing on Substack more.
Something I learned on the way in my job but also while doing this project is that you really don’t have to have perfect content for it to work, so don’t spend too much time on it. I personally pay more attention to what I’m saying than to the quality of the video or the small mistakes I make. Since I am doing science communication, the most important thing is that I understand the topic and present it in a way that people will understand as well. And if you are starting with some educational topic, don’t be afraid that you’ll run out of things to teach, I believed the same and then ended up with video ideas up until July in mid-December!
What is crucial to success with what you do?
You need to learn new things all the time, check your knowledge and biases. When that is covered, you can think of success. For me, daring to try and to reach and say “Hey, I have something I want to say” is what brought me the most success.
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