BSB Seminar Series: Structural phylogenetics: tracing protein functions from origins to diversification In this talk, I will show how combining phylogenetic inference, protein structure prediction, and ancestral sequence reconstruction opens new ways to investigate how protein functions originate and di...

Join us on campus & online on Thursday, 23 April 2026 at 1pm for a seminar by Dr Caroline Puente-Lelievre, Research Fellow from the School of Biological Sciences and Centre for Computational Evolution, University of Auckland. @corrylab.bsky.social Details: rb.gy/ik3ep3

If we want to conserve evolutionary history, we need to think about this: change the phylogenetic methods, and you change the conservation outcomes. New paper led by honours student Mina Kearns, with @alexskeels.bsky.social & @keaghanjames.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Heatmap of Felt It report data showing the epicenter near Boorowa, NSW, as a yellow pixel and fading out to lilac in Canberra and Sydney.

Legend for the Felt It report map from dark red Extreme to light blue Weak.

4.6 magnitude #Earthquake in #Canberra and #Sydney, #Australia at 7:09PM! (Epicenter in Boorowa, NSW.) Don't forget to fill out a Felt It report if you're local to the area to contribute #CommunityScience data.

earthquakes.ga.gov.au/event/ga2026...

Here's a chance to get involved in some important #citizenscience.

If you spot any tagged Bogong moths over the next few weeks or months, report them to the Bogong Watch website (www.bogong.org) or record them on iNaturalist.

#mothsmatter #ausinverts #wildoz #inaturalist #communityscience

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠

@alexskeels.bsky.social is a DECRA Fellow at ANU where he works on a broad range of topics relating to biogeography, macroecology, and paleoenvironments. He likes to hang out with his dog, read sci-fi, play the drums, and throw down on the pottery wheel 🏺

Breaking New Ground: Niche Divergence and Expansion in Ground Parrots (Pezoporini: Platycercinae) Aim The two species of ground parrots (Pezoporus wallicus and P. flaviventris) are morphologically and behaviourally similar, yet geographically disjunct and genetically distinct. We investigated th.....

New paper alert! 🚨🌏🧪

We've just published a neat little study in Journal of Biogegraphy, looking at the climatic and habitat niches of ground parrots and how they've evolved. Let's dive in a bit deeper!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

APSPM brought together researchers from around the world to explore protein evolution from different angles. Structural approaches are reshaping evolutionary inference and the community is growing. Huge thanks to participants and @official-smbe.bsky.social for making this meeting a success.
#StryPhy

Meet the APSPM 2026 organisers: Caroline, Jordan and Ashar. We're 3 ECRs based in Australia/NZ passionate about protein evolution and developing new approaches and applications to advance this exciting field.

biosig.lab.uq.edu.au/strphy26/org...
@official-smbe.bsky.social

Forecasting extinction risk for future-proof conservation decisions Conservation prioritisation emphasises currently threatened species, but there are strong arguments for complementary, more proactive approaches based on forecasting future extinction risk for unthrea...

Forecasting extinction risk for future-proof conservation decisions: Trends Ecol & Evolution www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Should conservation focus on threatened species? Or should we be proactive and protect species before they become threatened? This paper explores how to get the balance right.

The program is now live. An excellent global lineup of speakers - AUS, NZ, Korea, India, Laos, UK, Switzerland, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Uruguay, Mexico and USA. Browse abstracts. Just 3 weeks left. Super excited.

#StrPhy26 #Science #Evolution #StrPhy #StructuralPhylogenetics

Reconstructing substitution histories on phylogenies, with accuracy, precision, and coverage www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12...

Reconstructing substitution histories on phylogenies, with accuracy, precision, and coverage www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12...

Forecasting extinction risk for future-proof conservation decisions Conservation prioritisation emphasises currently threatened species, but there are strong arguments for complementary, more proactive approaches based on forecasting future extinction risk for unthreatened species. Forecasting methods vary in the timescale of extinction risk estimation and include established methods such as Population Viability Analysis (PVA) and Early Warning Systems, and emerging ‘Over-the-Horizon’ (OTH) methods. We develop a framework that integrates extinction risk assessment across timescales and outlines tradeoffs between shorter- and longer-term extinction prevention goals. This framework facilitates use of extinction risk forecasting in decision-theoretic conservation prioritisation that explicitly considers alternative time horizons for extinction prevention. Considering extinction risk on extended timescales offers a future-proof approach to conservation planning that may prevent more extinctions than focusing exclusively on currently threatened species.

Online now: Forecasting extinction risk for future-proof conservation decisions

Conceptual framework for extinction risk forecasting that outlines key elements and tradeoffs associated with forecasting on different time horizons.

Online now: Forecasting extinction risk for future-proof conservation decisions.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Should conservation focus on threatened species? Or should we be proactive and protect species before they become threatened? This paper explores how to get the balance right.

Annual salary for a Professor at the ANU in 2025 is $227,921 services.anu.edu.au/human-resour...
, yet Genevieve Bell will be getting over *double* that, plus a $400k golden handshake for VC, PLUS $200k in research funds.

Yet apparently ANU is in a budget crisis?

Absolute rot in uni governance

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

Are you a university staff member? Tired? Stressed? Overworked? It will only take 5-6 mins to help independent researchers shine a light on the state of wellbeing in our universities. Results will be published and responses anonymous. Please help by adding your voice: nteu.info/census

Language complexity is more likely to evolve in small, isolated populations, a recent study shows.

www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....

AES 2025 ECR Awards – Apply Now!

Submit your best paper (preprints welcome!) for a chance to give a 30-min plenary at AES 2025 in Brisbane.

Two categories:
PhD and Postdoc

Winners get $500 travel support + free rego

🔗 ausevo.com/2025_researc...

E&E Seminar Series: Boom-bust population dynamics drive rapid genetic & Conserving species with an ecological niche perspective This seminar is presented by Dr Emily Stringer and Dr Jarrod Sopniewski, Postdoctoral Research Fellows from the Centre for Conservation Ecology and Genomics at the University of Canberra.

‪Join us on campus & online on Thursday, 7 Aug 2025 at 1pm for a seminar by Dr Emily Stringer & Dr Jarrod Sopniewski, Postdoctoral Research Fellows from the Centre for Conservation Ecology and Genomics at the University of Canberra. Details: rb.gy/x3t1fm

enormous phylogeny of ~700 Grevilleoideae plants plus outgroups with major tribes and fossil calibrations highlighted

New paper out today in @pnas.org presenting near-complete phylogeny of the Grevilleoideae subfamily of Proteaceae plants, representing years of work and huge collaboration from an amazing team - ft. @marcelcardillo.bsky.social @hsauquet.bsky.social @austinmast.bsky.social and many others not on bsky

Why is there such variation in species diversity among regions? Work led by @alexskeels.bsky.social shows that the history of climate change driving expansion & contraction of biomes is at least as important as current environments. ‬https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2502129122

Please share: PhD scholarship opportunity in mathematical ecology on the value of information for improving ecological management, open to international students, with a great team @hugepossum.bsky.social, Katriona Shea, Kate Helmstedt, & me at UQ, Australia 🌍 🧮, study.uq.edu.au/study-option...

New preprint: we advertise DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly eco-evo-archaeo journals. 1/6
#AcademicPublishing #ecoevo #archaeology #EthicalPublishing #SocietyJournals #DiamondOpenAccess
doi.org/10.32942/X24...

Great to get this paper out on macroevolutionary trends of the hyperdiverse southwest Australian and eastern Australian floras! @alexskeels.bsky.social

Article is open access and can be downloaded here:
lnkd.in/gaxzYppQ

Macroevolutionary analysis of polysynthesis shows that language complexity is more likely to evolve in small, isolated populations | PNAS Evolution of complexity in human languages has been vigorously debated, including the proposal that complexity can build in small, isolated populat...

Macroevolutionary analysis of polysynthesis shows that language complexity is more likely to evolve in small, isolated populations

Bromham et al., PNAS

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Macroevolutionary analysis of polysynthesis shows that language complexity is more likely to evolve in small, isolated populations | PNAS Evolution of complexity in human languages has been vigorously debated, including the proposal that complexity can build in small, isolated populat...

Is language complexity more likely to evolve in small, isolated populations? We test this idea using global occurrence of one particular form of morphological complexity - polysynthesis (complex word forms that embody whole phrases) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

#ICCB2025 I'll be presenting our work on "Over the Horizon" extinction risk forecasting for proactive conservation planning at 10:30am on Monday, in M2.

It will be minus 3 degrees in Canberra tonight so looking forward to escaping to Brizzie for a few days...

WE DID IT, FOLKS
A song for the entomologists of the USDA m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYSI...