A single autoregressive integrated moving average with exogenous variable outperforms ensembles of autoregressive models for forecasting influenza hospitalizations in the contiguous United States Abstract. Infectious disease forecasting is important to public health decision-making, particularly for mitigating the burden of seasonal influenza. We pr

New paper with Victor Felix and Pej Rohani in J. R. Soc. Interface.
doi.org/10.1098/rsif...

Resurrecting habitat fragmentation as a process over time Habitat loss and fragmentation occur over time. Despite this truism, understanding the effects of habitat fragmentation has, in recent years, predominantly focused on interpreting snapshots of current...

Excited to share a new article from the lab & wonderful co-authors.

We argue that habitat fragmentation research needs to be recalibrated to focus on changes over time.

We hope that doing so will advance understanding, isolate attribution, and diminish heated debate.

www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

The American Naturalist classic cover

Antifragility: A Cross-Cutting Concept for Understanding Ecological Responses to Variability by Wickman et al.

Available now ahead of print!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Knowing more, understanding less Models, optimism, moral courage, and the limits of knowing (Nexus Notes #26)

This fortnight’s Nexus Notes connects models, techno‑optimism, moral courage, Welsh stick chairs (!), and why so many arguments talk past each other. There’s a deeper pattern here about models, responsibility, and perspective.
🔗👇
predirections.substack.com/p/knowing-mo...

The contributions of host diet and genetic background to shaping parasite infection outcomes in monarch butterflies across natural populations We experimentally tested the roles of diet and genetic background in shaping monarch butterfly resistance to its protozoan parasite using monarchs from North America, Puerto Rico and hybrids. We fou.....

New paper by Mackenzie Hoogshagen showing how contributions of diet & genetic background shape geographic variation in parasite infection outcomes across monarch butterfly populations - Ecological Entomology - share.google/s9s2Alqm9fQU...

In another experiment, we show how immigration can shift the balance between ecological selection and drift in shaping turnover in gut microbiomes across individual caterpillars and through development.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Regional Processes Mediate Ecological Selection and the Distribution of Plant Diversity Across Scales This experiment quantifies how species pool size and immigration influence plant community assembly in restored grasslands. Our findings reveal that greater immigration (seed arrival) and smaller spe...

With a landscape-scale experiment, we show how regional processes (immigration & species pool size) can alter the importance of species sorting and mitigate spatial homogenization of plant communities.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

We built a fragile society Modern society has optimised for efficiency at the expense of resilience

Petrol hit $3.40/L this week. One shock and the whole system wobbled.

We’ve built a society so optimised that it’s become brittle — supply chains, food systems, infrastructure, all running with no slack.

Society is optimising for efficiency. Ecosystems optimise for resilience.

Motherhood derails women’s academic careers — these data reveal how and why Mothers in academia take on considerably more childcare-related responsibilities than do fathers.

Becoming a parent is much worse for women in academia vs men, because women do 5 times (!!!) the amount of childcare than men www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I heard many of the warehouses here are empty... is that true?

Yes, and it's certainly nlt always the best option!

I've had two flavors of this, buth rare:

1. "I dont believe this, therefore your data are wrong." MS rejected. I successfully appealed the decision (not something I ever considered before this review).

2. "I don't believe this, but find no issues in the study and suggest acceptance."

Absolutely!

First 6 Days of Iran War Cost U.S. $11.3 Billion, Pentagon Says

The 2026 National Science Foundation budget is $8.75 Billion.

Nature is THE predatory journal. Not because it publishes junk or operates via unethical practices, but because they know how much they are coveted and price gouge. No society affiliation, just pure corporate greed.

Community trajectories towards a restoration target (increase in zooplankton community diversity and abundance to regain ecosystem function, facilitated by invasive fish removal), where functional and taxonomic composition recover at different rates: In the disturbance phase, non-native fish introductions reduce the functional diversity of zooplankton communities; during active restoration, fish are removed from lakes, allowing communities to recover functions associated with naturally fishless systems; the assisted or unassisted recovery phase is characterized by the initial reassembly of functional structure via plasticity and dispersal followed by taxonomic recovery through additional dispersal. Traits are shown as univariate for illustrative purposes but can encompass multiple traits in practice.

Our review of #trait - based approaches to ecological restoration is finally out in @esajournals.bsky.social *Ecological Applications*, highlighting the value of functional traits for creating system-general restoration strategies. 🌐 🧮➕📏 urldefense.com/v3/__http://

Accounting for the Influence of Community Turnover Along Environmental Gradients on Compositional Uniqueness Compositional uniqueness is commonly quantified using the Local Contribution to Beta Diversity (LCBD), which is typically regressed against environmental predictors. However, LCBD–environment relatio...

If you’re interested in modelling community turnover and/or community uniqueness (i.e. LCBD: local contribution to beta diversity), make sure you check it out.

Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Super happy to share that my article on inferring the dynamics of selective constraints across complex ontogenies is now out in Royal Society Open Science. My experience with RSOS was great, and I’m happy to be part of the movement towards open science!

royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

That's frustrating!

Eww, gross. That is so fucked up

Early morning view of Riverside, CA to calm my nerves during this 5-3 powerplay. 🇺🇸 vs 🇨🇦 #GoldMedal #Hockey #Olympics

Snow-capped mountains in Southern California

Beautiful winter morning in Riverside, California.

5x5-m plot dominated by flowering annual forb in invaded grassland in Southern California

Clear differenecs in plant compostion emerging in 1st year of #DRAGnet experiment manipulating #disturbance & #nutrients in an annual grassland in Riverside, CA. This plot is dominated by native Amsinckia menziesii, with neighboring plot dominated by non-native Brassica tournefortii.

We're getting close! Only ~20 more signatures needed. Any current member of the Ecological Society of America (@ecologicalsociety.bsky.social) is eligible to sign this petition for a new ESA Section for Distributed Ecological Research Networks: esa.org/membership/p...

Blue eyes, cryptantha white flowers and yellow fiddlenecks

Red and Orange monkeyflowers in a rocky area

Fields with warehouses and mountains in the background.

Riverside in bloom #BloomScrolling

We’re #hiring a #postdoc @ucriverside.bsky.social 🌿
Work on cis-regulatory evolution, gene family diversification, and cell-type-specific climate responses using single-cell and comparative genomics - kenchanmanelab.com/research/

Deadline: Feb 5, 2026
Apply: aprecruit.ucr.edu/apply/JPF02058

The global extent of the grassland biome and implications for the terrestrial carbon sink - Nature Ecology & Evolution By combining satellite observations with ground-based data and expert validation, this analysis demonstrates considerable misestimation of grassland extent and thereby carbon stock estimates in previo...

⚠️ New paper out in Nature Ecology & Evolution 🌱
#Grasslands #SoilCarbon @natecoevo.nature.com

Purple white and yellow flowers

Riverside super bloom with desert wishbone, fiddlenecks and popcorn flowers #NativePlants

“The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Friday that it is revoking seven grazing permits in Phillips County that American Prairie had been using to sustain its herd of bison.” 🧪🌐🌾

Please sign & share this petition to create a new ESA Section for Distributed Ecological Research Networks (DERNs): esa.org/membership/p...
Goals: promote and support participation in existing and new DERNs, facilitate sharing of knowledge, and encourage collaborations within and between networks.