Thinking like a mountain in the age of AI Click on the article title to read more.

In a sea of opinions about the role of LLMs in academics I offer my own.

Apart from being harmful, exploitive plagiarism machines, LLMs rob us of the opportunity to experience the gift of friction in writing, which changes how we think.

We must not give away that gift.

doi.org/10.1002/fee....

Optimising fire and predator management for conservation Our study demonstrates an end-to-end framework for using field data to derive optimal fire regimes for biodiversity in a way that explicitly acknowledges uncertainty and remains useful for conservati...

New paper, led by @billy-geary.bsky.social!

We identified the optimal distribution of time since fire values across our study region to maximise native mammal abundance under alternative fox baiting intensity and fire severity scenarios.

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

Title and author list for the synthesis paper titled "Understanding and Predicting Population Response to Anthropogenic Disturbance: Current Approaches and Novel Opportunities" published in Ecology Letters.

The latest paper from the DISCAR synthesis group is out at Ecology Letters! We discuss the key approaches to predicting human impacts on wildlife populations, highlighting avenues for incorporating indirect effects, such as energetic modelling. doi.org/10.1111/ele....

Interdisciplinary challenges for wildfire futures Wildfire has shaped many ecosystems across Earth, and humans have in turn shaped fire and its interactions within a range of socio-ecological systems.…

New paper out! This is a big, interdisciplinary reflection on the types of challenges that are likely to come our way in the context of wildfires in the next 50 years. Was fun to write this one. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🔥 New in IJWF:
How will climate change reshape fuel hazards across landscapes?
McColl-Gausden et al. modelled future fire risks across Victoria, Australia and their findings highlight the urgent need for adaptive fuel management in a warming climate.
📖 Read: doi.org/10.1071/WF24...
#IJWildlandFire

How do humans alter predator-prey temporal overlap across the globe? Come find out Wednesday 2pm room M4 in the Ecology and behaviour (predators) session

Pumped to be at @iccb2025.bsky.social Brisbane. Come see our talk on evaluating tools for understanding the biodiversity impacts of financial institutions! Wednesday Room M9 @ 3:51pm

‘Megafire’—You May Not Like It, But You Cannot Avoid It Aim The term ‘megafire’ is increasingly used to describe large fires worldwide. We proposed a size-based definition of megafire—fires exceeding 10,000 ha arising from single or multiple related igni.....

‘Megafire’ — you may not like it, but you can’t avoid it.
In our new paper, we argue why a clear, size-based definition (>10,000 ha) of megafire improves research, communication, and fire management globally. 🔥
Read it here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

#wildfire #fire

Addressing Australia’s biodiversity crisis

Australian governments are failing to conserve biodiversity, meaning their extraordinary values are being lost and global conservation targets will likely fail. The next federal government must do better.

My letter with @biodiversityguy.bsky.social in @science.org.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

LA is on fire. How will Australia cope when bushfires hit Sydney, Melbourne or another major city? We knew this would happen eventually. We have moved from possible futures to these things now happening. The deferment has ended.

We knew this would happen eventually. We have moved from possible futures to these things now happening. The deferment has ended.

The insanity of being a fire ecologist in the epicenter of a major fire event, bags packed and ready to evacuate, watching active fire from my window, while taking media requests and explaining to the public, for the 100,000th time how climate change is largely responsible for this

In 2025, let’s make it game on – not game over – for our precious natural world Amidst habitat destruction and ecological grief, let’s make a New Year’s resolution for nature — to care for beetles and butterflies, rainforests and reefs, ourselves, and future generations.

I wrote an article for @theconversation.com with Marissa Parrott about coping with ecological grief. It's a shared experience for many of us in ecology and conservation—an inescapable part of our work. I hope you find it both relatable and uplifting.

theconversation.com/in-2025-lets...

My third PhD paper, and probably my favorite. A lot of effort, a lot of learning, and a lot of incredible collaborators made this possible. Proud of this work!

'Videogame ecology’ can help us understand the climate crisis in our forests New University of Melbourne is using computer game models to ‘challenge’ Australian plant species to survive future climate and fire scenarios

Final chapter of my PhD has just been published (only a few years late 😃). Check out the paper here: doi.org/10.1111/ecog...
For a quicker read, check out this article which includes a super cute retro video game example 🌳🔥. pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/vVi...

Conceptual model for assessing a science–policy–management framework for threat mitigation Fire regimes are changing globally, leading to an increased need for management interventions to protect human lives and interests, potentially conflicting with biodiversity conservation. We conceptu...

New paper out in Conservation Biology. We propose a simple conceptual model for examining threat management programs and identifying areas for improvement. We show how it can be used in the context of managing fire around threatened flora. 1/4

dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi...