NEW ISSUE: The NJB April is out, featuring a Special Issue section on "Plant performance and diversity in roadside and railway habitats"! Edited by Svenja Kroeger and Tommy Lennartsson.
➡️Editorial: vist.ly/4xqjh
➡️Whole issue: vist.ly/4xqjk
@nordicoikos.bsky.social #OpenAccess
Weekend at Invertrossachs, west of Callander. Beaver signs about 100m away from the cottage, and our dog walker saw one late one evening. Weather varied between snow, torrential rain and lovely sunshine.
Check the Saving Scotland's Red Squirrel website for details. The greys are trapped and then humanely despatched. This year's data shows no greys in Aberdeen area. Always plenty of reds around Aberdeenshire and now recolonising the city as the greys have been eliminated.
Then again most of lowland Britain was woodland, so on a long time scale you could say that about any present vegetation. "That ryegrass field indicates the presence of former woodland".
Can't think of any written sources. Possible to look at old maps and see what has replaced woodland. Check Guy Shrubsole's Lost Rainforests if he notes present vegetation. As bracken likes the same sort of places that many trees do, then if you insert "probably" in the contention, it would hold.
I think Churchill might have been pleased with being replaced by a badger. My thoughts were dominated by Britain responding like a cornered badger in 1940 (not an animal I'd like to deal with) and Badger in Wind in the Willows.
New paper alert!
Across 256 semi‑natural grassland communities we found that genomic traits, especially ploidy, predict which plant species are most affected by fragmentation & high P levels
Polyploids are less vulnerable than diploids
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
A new paper publised in New Phytologist led by Xiaobin Pan "Reconciling links between diversity and population stability across global plant communities"
dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph....
Beautiful day at Huntly Castle for a bat hibernation survey. Sadly, the toilets weren't open. Hopefully, no one was inside when the tree came down
New paper out using trend data on occupancy and Species Climate Indicators. We show that species of wet and cold areas of the UK are doing badly across lots of different invetebrate groups not just the big, colourful ones.🕷️🐜🪰🪲
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
With @jennistockan.bsky.social
Very excited to share that my first first-author paper is out in the Journal of Vegetation Science! 🌱🥳
Our paper used a 20-year grazing experiment in the Scottish uplands to assess how grass community traits shift in response to grazing.
📖 Paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Sunshine. Between home and working in Aberdeen, this is the first time I have seen the sun in weeks. Seemed to have swapped very cold rain with snow and clear skies.
Do you have repeat surveys of UK invertebrates? This dataset of species climate indicators for 4900 UK species could help inform your analysis of change. doi.org/10.1016/j.di...
Three cheers for the wee village of Rhynie, known throughout the world for its fossils (plus its hill fort for those interested in more recent events). Cool science.
PhD position #ecology #evolution #academic 🌍🧪
#PhDlife #job @stockholm-uni.bsky.social
Our very first fully #OpenAccess issue is now out! 🥳Don't miss the Editorial with interesting facts on NJB's origin, its successful development as a @nordicoikos.bsky.social.bsk.social journal and a positive future outlook!
➡️Full issue: vist.ly/4mvwd
🌿Join the 68th IAVS Annual Symposium.🌿
⌛️ Early bird registrations are now open.
Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to connect with fellow vegetation scientists!
Take advantage of the early bird rates. Location: Gijón, Spain.
Apply here—https://2026gijon.iavs-meetings.org/
Recruitment poster for 12 botanical or entomological field surveyors, April-September 2026. Closing date: January 30, 2026.
🦋🌿Hiring 12 x Botanists or Entomologists for 2026 field surveys in England!
4-month, full-time roles from late April to early September.
Field sites in Yorkshire, Devon, Warwickshire, Kent/Sussex, Lincolnshire/Cambridge, Essex/Suffolk.
Apply now: ceh.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/CEH_Ca... 🧪
Visit to Willington nature reserve today. Gravel pits mostly frozen over but some teal with the Canada geese. However, a kingfisher was foraging just by the turn off from the road. Apologies for the very poor picture.
I suspect this is the largest auditorium I've spoken in. Edinburgh International Conference Centre main theatre. Picture taken before the audience appeared!
Landscape view of a valley.
Landscape view of a field showing fencing and a hedge going across the photo.
There are #PhD opportunities at 2 #LongTermExperiments #LTE:
Glen Finglas: bit.ly/4iEgYRB Based at: @newcastleuni.bsky.social | Deadline: 5 January 2026
Tulloch: bit.ly/4avAi18 | Based at: @srucnews.bsky.social | Deadline: 7 January 2025 🌏
Phew. Vol 931.
Maybe they will clear out the editors and relaunch?
What are the perils vs possibilities in working with business & finance to achieve nature recovery?
Come to our workshop next week (Tuesday, 13:15) at #BES2025 to explore these issues & share your thoughts
@britishecologicalsociety.org
@bes-cascade.bsky.social
One week remaining. Applications need to include two references, so don't leave it too late to apply for this @srucnews.bsky.social CASE partnership with @ptes-org.bsky.social.
Details: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
The other pleasure of fieldwork in Scotland is getting soaked and not seeing anything all day. A view of Glen Finglas where we were out testing a new herbivore impact assessment method in our long-term grazing experiment.
PhD available!
To address the intersection of restoration ecology and biodiversity policy
by developing spatially explicit, realistic restoration strategies using scenario-based modelling
to generate tools & support effective biodiversity planning
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
New #mammal conservation #PhD: "Understanding and Addressing Rural Hedgehog Population Declines".
@srucnews.bsky.social EastBio CASE project in partnership with (and co-supervised by) @ptes-org.bsky.social.
Details: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Act fast - applications close 15 December.
🦔🦔🦔
📣Job vacancy!📣
Research Fellow in Global Conservation at Leeds, working with Dave Williams (and me, a bit) to assess the impact of conservation initiatives on biodiversity, carbon, and people: jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
#ConservationScience 🌍
One of the pleasures of fieldwork in Scotland is the views. Here is Ben Challum today from Glen Lochay. Bit cold as the sun didn't reach us until 10.40.
🐘🌳 Elephants disperse seeds that drive forest diversity & carbon storage—but effects vary across sites. Context matters for linking wildlife recovery to climate & biodiversity goals
📷 © Liam Jasperse-Sjolander
vist.ly/4e9hh
