Rare & endemic to the Balkan Peninsular, Ferula heuffelii is a star amongst herbarium collections from the 19th & 20th Century. Yet, its phylogenetic position remains mysterious, leading to this paper discussing the difficulties in reconstructing the phylogeny within this genus 🧪🌍👇
Beautiful purple orchids bloom
Orchid-you not, while plant translocations can help mitigate extinction risk, they are often unsuccessful due to a failure to take their ecology into account. Yet for one orchid (Caladenia formosa), understanding its threats, pollinators & population viability offered some help!
buff.ly/S488fic
A screenshot of the Paper Trail blog series webpage, showing four blog thumbnails with striking photographs of different animals. The first is a brightly coloured spider for the blog "The Politics of Taxonomy - Tangled in a Web of Inequalities". The second is of two mouse lemurs looking sweetly up to the left, over the blog "Out on a Limb: How Primates Jump in the Trees". The third is of an elephant emerging from behind a tree in tall grass in soft lighting, above the blog "Elephant Poo is a World Class Fertilizer... Sometimes". The final one is a blue-lit beetle, proud and mysterious, almost mirroring the posture and form of the elephant to its right, above the blog "Ghosts of the Past: How DNA Reveals an Extinct Island Lineage".
📣 Call for writers!
Are you an early career researcher? University student? Science communicator? Know someone who is? We're always looking for new Guest Bloggers to contribute to our journal blog The Paper Trail! Have a read below, or check out our vacancies page to apply.
buff.ly/7IohkLQ
Found in open fields of South America, a habitat impacted by livestock & agriculture, species from these grasslands are poorly studied. Here, the genetic diversity & population structure of Petunia was investigated, helping to understand the speciation process! (2/2) 🧪
doi.org/10.1093/botl...
It's common knowledge by now that human activity has a negative impact on species, affecting conservation & #Biodiversity. This can be exacerbated in transition zones, where species limits are unknown. The genus Petunia inhabits one such zone...a 🧵(1/2) 🧪🌍
Processes of evolution can change over time, resulting in compositional & exchange rate tree heterogeneity...curious to know what the means for phylogenetics? Check out this paper 👇🌍🧪
doi.org/10.1093/evol...
For #Conservation to be successful & focused, accurate taxonomy is critical (and we're not just saying that because we're a Linnean Journal). Using range-wide sampling & genome-wide analyses, the species boundaries of Grevillea brachystylis was assessed, helping to do just that! 🌍🧪👇
📣 Call for Volunteers!
Are you an early career researcher? University student? Science communicator? Know someone who is? We're always looking for new Guest Bloggers to contribute to our journal blog The Paper Trail! Find out more about it & apply below 👇🌍🧪
An artistic reconstruction of the fossil horsetail, showing a large bracket of seed pods.
It might be the year of the fire horse now, but you know what came first? Sphenophyllales...an extinct clade of HORSEtails important for ground cover & understory of tropical Carboniferous peat swamps! A new species is described here from Illinois, check it out 🌍🧪🐎
doi.org/10.1093/botl...
We couldn't do it without our authors, and we look forward to another year of ground breaking research published with us. (4/4)
If you want to be part of our history, why not consider one of our journals as the home for your research this year? Find out how below 👇
academic.oup.com/biolinnean/p...
We reinvest back into our journals through our expert Editorial Office, ensuring a high-quality peer review process. Additionally, we promote authors’ work & showcase the research we publish through blogs, online lectures & in-person events, making science accessible to all (3/4). 🌍🧪
As a not-for-profit organisation, the research published with us goes directly towards funding our community outreach & engagement. Most notably, this includes our historical collections, extensive education and events programmes, and our prestigious medals, prizes and awards. (2/4) 🌍🧪
Why not publish your research with a Society Journal? 🧪🌍
The Linnean Society is committed to publishing high-quality and ground-breaking scientific research across the four themes of botany, zoology, biology and evolution, striving to make these accessible & engaging to a global audience. 🧵(1/4)
Fossil mushrooms are found in sedimentary rock. Eight images show the fossil mushrooms in yellow stone. They look like alien spaceship landing marks on a far distant planet, but they're not, they're just fossil mushrooms (wink wink).
3D reconstructions of the fossil mushrooms are shown across eight images, showing all angles of the new species.
Usually there's not mushroom for #FossilFriday in our Botanical journal, but this week we're in luck! Fossils in sedimentary rocks have revealed the co-oldest gilled mushroom forming fungus, and it's pretty spectacular! Check it out 🧪🌍🍄
doi.org/10.1093/botl...
We build up the voices of those publishing with us, offering opportunities to share their expertise, expand their audiences & receive recognition for their hard work through our journal blog, events programme & PhD student prizes. We're proud to do this, as we are proud of our community. (3/3)
The value of our journal community is immense; it supports our work to fund education programmes, care for our collections & offer medals & awards for ground breaking individuals across the spectrum of natural history. In return, we have our own role to play: supporting those who support us. (2/3)
As a Society Journal, it's not just the work that we publish that's important, but what that work goes on to support. This blog post sums up our role as a place for research perfectly: we help to shape the very systems through which people access knowledge...a 🧵(1/3) 🧪🌍
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Dryadella, a genus of mini orchids from Central & South America, shows remarkable morphological similarity among species...but why? Using biogeographical analyses, it was found to be monophyletic, with current similarities suggesting the genus is still differentiating! 🌍🧪
doi.org/10.1093/botl...
If history is written by the victors, who are the victors in science?
Our latest #ThePaperTrail blog delves into who was holding the pen in taxonomy - a historically male-dominated field - using spiders as a case study. The answer probably won't shock you...🧪🌍
www.linnean.org/news/2026/03...
Rare, endemic species often prove difficult to conserve, as their #Conservation status is hard to determine. This is true for Feliciadamia stenocarpa, a species endemic to a single mountain range in Guinea. Here, phylogenetic analysis helped to tentatively assess it as endangered! 🧪
buff.ly/JhltLgd
Quinoa? Hardly know her...
The wild ancestor of quinoa can be found across Argentina, prompting researchers to investigate leaf shape to understand local adaptation & ecological niche breadth of this species! Curious? Take a LEAF through this paper to find out...🌍🧪
doi.org/10.1093/botl...
Dani and Connor presenting at the Linnean Society, they are both smiling. In the backround is a historic chair and portrait of Carl Linnaeus.
Close up of someone cutting out a picture of a bird for a zine page. In the background are a colourful array of pens and materials to make a collage
A group of people, all smiling, on the stage together at the Linnean Society
We had a wonderful time yesterday at Exploring Queerness in Natural History.
We're writing up it up to share in a future blog post, but for now here are some pictures of our fantastic curators @aquadan1.bsky.social and Connor Butler, the lunchtime zine-making, and our afternoon panellists.
We couldn't do it without our authors, and we look forward to another year of ground breaking research published with us.
If you want to be part of our history, why not consider one of our journals as the home for your research this year?
academic.oup.com/biolinnean/p...
We reinvest back into our journals through our expert Editorial Office, ensuring a high-quality peer review process. Additionally, we promote authors’ work & showcase the research we publish through blogs, online lectures & in-person events, making science accessible to all (3/4).
As a not-for-profit organisation, the research published with us goes directly towards funding our community outreach & engagement. Most notably, this includes our historical collections, extensive education and events programmes, and our prestigious medals, prizes and awards. (2/4)
Why not publish your research with a Society Journal? 🧪🌍
The Linnean Society is committed to publishing high-quality and ground-breaking scientific research across the four themes of botany, zoology, biology and evolution, striving to make these accessible & engaging to a global audience. 🧵(1/4)
We're going down, we're yelling TIMBERRR!
Climate change has influenced genetic diversity & distribution of tropical African trees, but to what extenT? Here, the phylogeography of an endangered timber species was investigated, revealing recurrent range expansion–fragmentation! 🧪
Orchid-ding me!!
Found across the Kra Isthmus in Thailand, 3 varieties of the orchid P. godefroyae exist. But why are there three, how do they differ & does the Kra Isthmus act as a barrier? Guess you'll need to read the paper to find out 🧪🌍😉
In Europe, only a few N American asters (Symphyotrichum) are naturalised or cultivated, with some exhibiting invasive behaviour & others misidentified. How do we fix this? Understanding their cytogeography (distribution of gene complexes), as done here along the Danube...🧪🌍
doi.org/10.1093/botl...
Accelerating #BiodiversityLoss, environmental degradation & social instability affect tropical & subtropical regions in South America. Museum collections are critical for documenting & preserving biodiversity, yet often get overlooked. Introducing: INALI snake collection (1/2) 🧪🌍
buff.ly/DbvmLsf