Absolutely wild hey! Nearly waist high Mitchell grass in the flats

Read more about how this global experiment works at dragnetglobal.org

@unswbees.bsky.social

a clear blue sky and green grassy foregrand

a 1 x 1 m quadrat sits over very dense grassy vegetation

dry and brown grasses sit among a backdrop of a partly cloudy sky

a 1 x 1 m quadrat sits among completely bare ground

What a difference a year makes! Nearly 200 mm of late summer rain at Fowlers Gap and our DRAGNet plots are unrecognisable. "Just add rain" as Garry says. Tusind tak to Liv Portmann and Peyton Hampel for their help - the biomass harvesting is off the charts! @loveyouleafyou.bsky.social

Soils drive convergence in the regulation of vascular tension in land plants Terrestrial vascular plants operate under negative water potential, which results in hydraulic tension in the vascular system. Vascular tension varies with transpiration and soil drying and is regulat...

Out in @science.org this week. Soils drive convergence in the regulation of vascular tension in land plants. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#plantscience
#ecophysiology

Intraspecific Functional Trait Responses to Experimental Warming Vary With Precipitation and Growth Form We assessed the intraspecific functional trait response of 17 alpine plant species to experimental warming across a precipitation gradient. Warming consistently increased plant height. In contrast, t...

How do alpine plants respond to warming?Intraspecific trait shifts depend on precipitation and growth form, with stronger responses in forbs than graminoids.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@joshua-erkelenz.bsky.social @sonyageange.bsky.social @joe-atkinson.bsky.social @vvandvik.bsky.social

Beautiful photo of the snow and campus Wanben! It makes me miss Aarhus 🥲

Key links:

Plant Ecophysiology Lab
sites.google.com/view/ilainem...

The team's researcher profiles
researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/ilai...
researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/sami...
researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/joe....

Adelaide Uni CV template
adelaideuni.edu.au/content/dam/...

PhD Opportunity in Plant Ecophysiology – Adelaide University We are looking for an PhD candidate to join an exciting research project focused on understanding heat and drought combined impacts on threatened plants’ mortality. Key Objectives: Describe drought sensitivity in juvenile and mature individuals of threatened plant species. Disentangle the effects of elevated temperature, soil dryness, and atmospheric water demand on the sensitivity of threatened species to hotter droughts. Model threatened species’ risk of mortality under current and future hotter droughts. Eligibility: Australians and international applicants with a completed Master's degree (GPA > 5.0) and/or a completed 4-year Bachelor with Honours (GPA > 5.0) in Plant Biology or related areas; Proof of English proficiency (e.g. IELTS score > 6.5 or equivalent qualification), only for applicants who speak English as a second language. Strong analytical and programming skills in R or Python. Genuine interest in studying plants with previous experience in plant ecology and/or physiology. Effective writing skills; a passion for reading, writing, and continually improving as a communicator. Ability to drive in Australia is desirable but not essential. Start Date: April 2026 (negotiable) Duration: 3.5 years Benefits: PhD scholarship (tax-exempt stipend of $36,500 AUD p.a. + $3,000 AUD p.a. top up); Higher stipend rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander candidates ($ 53,608 p.a.); Relocation allowances for both domestic and international candidates; Single Overseas Student Health cover for international applicants. 100% tuition fee waiver. How to Apply: Email the following documents to ilaine.matos@adelaide.edu.au before the 15th of February 2026. Women and people underrepresented in research are encouraged to apply. 1-page cover letter explaining why you are interested in this position and your previous experiences relevant for this opportunity. Curriculum Vitae in the Adelaide University format.

✨ PhD opportunity studying drought and heatwave effects on threatened plants ✨🔥

Funded by an ARC DECRA awarded to the amazing Dr Ilaíne Matos and co-supervised by Dr Sami Rifai and me!

Limited by the character limit here, so please see the attached flyer for all the details - please share widely!

Beautiful Sunset in Kaingo Private Game Reserve, one of our fieldsites

A white rhino in Dabchick Wildlife Reserve, one of our fieldsites

Woody savanna landscape in Swebeswebe Nature Reserve, on of our fieldsites

Overview of the reserves in our study sites. Shows the location of 10 included reserves with pictograms indicating the largest herbivore in each.

Excited to share that my first PhD chapter just got published in @animalecology.bsky.social! You can check it out here: doi.org/10.1111/1365.... Based on fieldwork in the beautiful Waterberg Biosphere Reserve in South Africa, we show that.. (1/3)

Finished up the annual sampling and a spray treatment for @joe-atkinson.bsky.social and I @bugnet.bsky.social sites out at Fowlers Gap. Blue skies and red earth always a great backdrop for fieldwork

A group of 30 people stand in a tilled field surrounded by auger holes with seedlings ready to plant

A great day out yesteday planting a diverse mix of tubestock with a bunch of other keen volunteers for the BioR planting festival at Frahns Farm! We were lucky to get a beautiful day, as the cold and rain arrives this week. Good luck little seedlings!

Very much enjoy the "so-and-so (a botanist)"

Rainforest with buttressed trees, palms and a strangler fig in a shaded understory.

Congratulations to @jradford-smith.bsky.social for making the cover of @ecography.bsky.social with his stunning photo of subtropical #rainforest at Mt Glorious, less than an hour from Brisbane in beautiful Queensland (1 of 2).

Super inspiring paper and nice pic! I can feel the leeches on my ankles just looking at it 😂

The rapid assessments accurately identified species as threatened in 84% of cases despite much less time and data per species. Importantly they were accurate in identifying Critically Endangered species (67%) and Endangered species (54%). 2/4

New paper out! After the 2019-2020 #fires in Australia our team undertook #IUCN Red List assessments of fire affected #plant species, to handle the volume we undertook paired rapid and full assessments and compared their accuracy 1/4

doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...

Please share. We are hiring domestic/international #PhD students to work on citizen science, insect migration/conservation at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. If interested, please email me. You can find more about our research interests here. shawanchowdhury.com.

Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire‐prone heathland shrubs? We demonstrate that key functional traits undergo shifts in their relationship with growth as plants mature. Therefore, it will be valuable to shift our understanding of plant strategies away from th...

📢 New publication 'Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire-prone heathland #shrubs?' by Lily Dun, Elizabeth Wenk, Daniel Falster, Mark Westoby and Ian Wright in Journal of Ecology 🧪

doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Rooting for the little guy: Below‐ground traits predict juvenile grass demography in microsites Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

🌱 New paper in @funecology.bsky.social examines how roots drive the growth of juvenile grasses in response to manipulated soil moisture doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Led by SAM AHLER (INSTAAR+EBIO), the team's results improve understanding of grass population dynamics & help guide grassland restoration

Thanks Caroline! Looking forward to catching up in June

Earless Dragon Tympanocryptis tetraporophora on red clay

Two quadrats sit on bare red clay

Another quadrat sits on bare red clay with scattered dying plants

An open vista of a semi arid chenopod shrubland/grassland mosaic with blue sky and scattered clouds

Had a great week before our at the Fowlers Gap Arid Zone Research Station doing the annual sampling of our (me and @loveyouleafyou.bsky.social) DRAGNet experimental site. Pretty crispy this year with some pretty fast cover estimates... A lot of bare ground...

Three storey red brick and sandstone building with sign "school of botany" with Joe standing on steps in main entrance

Selfie in front of entranceway

Red brick and sandstone building with a green lawn in foreground and a bright blue sky

Over the moon to say today is my first day as a Lecturer in Botany at the University of Adelaide. I am character limited so will just be brief other than to say how grateful I am for the amazing support and encouragement I have received from mentors and collaborators. Can't wait to get started!

Regional databases demonstrate macroecological patterns less clearly than systematically collected field data The analysis of macroecological patterns has necessitated the use of large, composite datasets recording local-scale species occurrences distributed across the globe. These datasets, however, have va....

The third part of my PhD work is now out on Early View in @ecography.bsky.social, available #OpenAccess. 🌐🐚

We were interested in how macroecological patterns recreated from OBIS data might differ from those seen in the field and across methods -

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

Very happy to also say that New Scientist covered our paper last week too - www.newscientist.com/article/2472...

With some nice comments from overseas colleagues too 🌐🌿🦬🌍

The #biosphere is changing: Check our global mapping of ecological novelty in wild #ecosystems (due to #climatechange, #defaunation & floristic disruption) - just out in @natureecoevo.bsky.social ♨️🐘🌿🌐 Big thx to @mattkerr.bsky.social for the huge effort! #novelecosystems #invasivespecies #megafauna

Read our new study on mapping ecologically novel conditions - out now in Nature Ecology and Evolution 🌍🦬🌿

Headline finding is that 58% of the biosphere is experiencing highly novel conditions, but nowhere was low - we really are living in a novel world.

Widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere - Nature Ecology & Evolution Even outside urban and agricultural areas, ecosystems are vastly transformed as a result of human activities. Here the authors map patterns in climate change, defaunation and floristic disruption to q...

1/6 Paper Alert📢📢📢
New publication from #ECONOVO on the widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere🌱

Read the article here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Key take homes below👇

Interesting paper on the potential complex impacts of varroa mites on Australian plants. Honey bees can promote fragmented populations of river red gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), one example of a +ve interaction potentially threatened. Check out Tom's thread and get involved in the iNat project!

Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire‐prone heathland shrubs? We demonstrate that key functional traits undergo shifts in their relationship with growth as plants mature. Therefore, it will be valuable to shift our understanding of plant strategies away from th...

New paper! How does age affect plant trait-growth relationship? Does how you measure growth matter? 🌱📏Big thank you to @ianjwright.bsky.social for giving me the opportunity to lead this when I was just a research assistant. doi.org/10.1111/1365...

#ECONOVOStories 🌍✨

@joe-atkinson.bsky.social, @mattkerr.bsky.social, @cmlmagneville.bsky.social, and @seh-pang.bsky.social attended the BES Annual Meeting 2024, sharing insights on from their research at ECONOVO!
#ECONOVO #Ecology #Biodiversity #AarhusUniversity #BritishEcologicalSociety