Freshly published paper led by @santiagotrueba.bsky.social on leaf water losses across vascular plants 🌳🔬🧪
The 50-fold variation in gmin across ecological groups was weakly related to phylogeny with evidence for convergent evolution in response to climate 🌡️💦
@newphyt.bsky.social
I am again asking people to pay attention to what has happened to our National Science Foundation and by extension thousands of researchers across the country.
The devastation is ongoing and worthy of continued outcry to officials and journalists. 🧪
A black-and-white studio portrait photograph of Emma Lucy Braun, the pioneering American botanist and plant ecologist widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists in the study of eastern North American forests. Shown from the shoulders up against a soft, neutral gradient background, Braun appears in her later years with a calm, intelligent gaze directed straight at the viewer. Her white hair is neatly styled and swept back from her face, and she wears delicate round wire-rimmed glasses. A gentle, knowing half-smile softens her expression, conveying quiet authority, warmth, and scholarly poise. She is dressed in a light-colored, pleated blouse with a gathered neckline and a prominent dark floral brooch pinned at the center of her chest; the visible sleeve features subtle decorative patterning. The tight, centered composition focuses entirely on her face and upper torso, creating an intimate and dignified mood that emphasizes intellect and dignity over ornamentation.
Botanist/plant ecologist E. Lucy Braun is one of the most influential ecologists in North American history.
+ First woman President, Ecological Society of America, 1950
+ Helped establish plant ecology as a rigorous academic discipline
She was born #OTD in 1889. #WomenInSTEM #conservation #ecosky
US House Republicans have cleared the way for Chilean mining giant Antofagasta to engage in copper-sulfide mining - which produces sulfuric acid - above the pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which 165,00 Americans visit each year.
Catch up on SFI’s first Community Lecture for 2026, Crossroads Democracy Panel.
The panel featured Jenna Bednar, Samuel Bowles, Hahrie Han, Katrin Schmelz, and David Krakauer as moderator. It explored the history, economics, psychology, and politics of democracy.
Watch on SFI’s YouTube channel:
Well done to Michael (Misha) Stemkovski, @mishastemkovski.bsky.social for winning the 2025 Haldane Prize in @funecology.bsky.social.
Misha's paper presents ecological acclimation as a framework that synthesises various ways ecosystems adjust to climate change.
doi.org/10.1111/1365...
Across the board Vought at OMB continues to illegally hold up the funds already appropriated by Congress to federal agencies.
Every week I speak to researchers whose funding was supposed to arrive months ago and there is no timetable being given for them being funded.
This is unprecedented. 🧪
Horse-backing riding past a large saguaro cactus on a trail heading to distant desert mountains... is one of many outdoor activities in the Tucson area.
🌵🌵🌵 Tucson: A City for Outdoor Lovers
Owls, oases and the Milky Way reward adventure seekers in and around this Arizona city in the Sonoran Desert.
Motherhood derails women’s academic careers — these data reveal how and why www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Total solar eclipse seen from behind the moon
No humans have ever seen this before.. a total solar eclipse seen from the far side of the moon! #ArtemisII
A close-up view from the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II crew’s lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, captures a total solar eclipse, with only part of the Moon visible in the frame as it fully obscures the Sun. We see a glowing halo around the dark lunar disk, and to the left a bright silver glint can be seen which is Venus. The image is dark and moody.
The lunar surface fills the frame in sharp detail, as seen during the Artemis II lunar flyby, while a distant Earth sets in the background. In this image, the dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime, while on its day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region.
Struggling to focus this evening, so here are two of my favourite recent Artemis II photos from the growing collection: images.nasa.gov
- Artemis II Total Solar Eclipse, Partial Frame
- A Setting Earth
#Artemis II -
Todays ‘Earthrise’ image is reminiscent of a similar image taken in 1968 by astronaut Bill Anders of Apollo 8
Bill was 1 of 3 crew who became the first to leave low-Earth orbit and travel to the moon.
Pic 1 - Apollo 8 1968
Pic 2 - Artemis II 2026
🚀🌕
Check out the new blog post on our latest #BIEN paper in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social BIEN 4.2: A Reproducible Standard for Global Plant Biodiversity Data 🧪🌐🌾
Check out the new blog post on our latest #BIEN paper in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social BIEN 4.2: A Reproducible Standard for Global Plant Biodiversity Data 🧪🌐🌾
I am shocked to see this language from the NSF.
“The U.S. National Science Foundation's Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request reflects a strategic alignment of resources in a constrained fiscal environment while eliminating woke and weaponized grant programs that previously funded radical DEI projects.”
Earth taken by the Artemis II crew on Friday afternoon. One showed our planet cut in half, with one side lit up by the sun and the other obscured by the black of night. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/science/nasa-artemis-moon-photos.html
Earth taken by the Artemis II crew on Friday afternoon 🌐🧪
Full image of Earth taken by the crew of Artemis II. Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman
How anybody can look at this image and think there are better options out there is entirely beyond me.
The only planet with whales, and butterflies, and giant sequoias. Home.
“They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science…And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees”
They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science, the kind you literally cannot restart once it’s gone. #USForestService
Pretty much sums up what 1991 was like
BREAKING: Huge win for the Endangered Species Act! Today’s ruling restores the Endangered Species Act to the status it held for decades before the *first* Trump administration attacked the ESA.
Feeling very privileged to be one of the speakers invited to celebrate the University of Arizona EEB departments 50th anniversary
“In other words: there has never been, in all of recorded history, a Southwestern U.S. heat event that yielded departures from typical seasonal temperatures as large as what were observed during the March 2026 event.”
While the situation is grim at NIH, it's closer to catastrophic at NSF. They're just not able to move any money out the door. It appears OMB has them on lockdown. www.science.org/content/arti....
Projection of post-drought recovery of intact Amazonian rainforests after the 2023–2024 droughts. (A) Time series of annual median recovery projections after the 2023–2024 droughts. The error bars represent the medians of the lower and upper bounds of the 95% confidence intervals across all pixels. (B) Spatial pattern of recovery at 7th year after the 2023–2024 droughts.
The Amazon rainforest was hit with two severe droughts during 2023–2024. Models suggest that just over half the forest will not recover within seven years, which is the maximum time between droughts in recent decades. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/BKQ150YySOw
We're hiring an Assistant Professor of Ecology! Come and join me and a great group of colleagues at University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Our job ad: efhc.fa.ca2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Message me if you have questions. @ibiouwindsor.bsky.social @uwindsor.bsky.social
