How do Empirical Metacommunity Ecologists (not) Define Local Communities and How Could These be Better Defined? Metacommunity Theory assumes discrete local communities, yet empirically delineating such local communities is challenging. To resolve the gap between theoretical assumptions and empirical practice, ...

working on multi-species (community) occupancy models and glad I'm not crazy for not really knowing what a community is: doi.org/10.1111/ele....

Personalized Cancer Vaccines Are Almost Here—But Federal Funding Cuts Could Derail Them Vaccines based on mRNA can be tailored to target a cancer patient’s unique tumor mutations. But crumbling support for cancer and mRNA vaccine research has endangered this promising therapy

personalized mRNA vaccines sounds way more hip and cooler than NFTs www.scientificamerican.com/article/pers...

white-tailed doe with quintuplets in Tennessee 🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌 doi.org/10.1656/058....

Tropical forest carbon offsets deliver partial gains amid persistent over-crediting REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation Plus) projects generate carbon credits to offset emissions, but recent studies have questioned their effectiveness. We evaluated 52 volunta...

if you're wondering... does carbon offsetting really work? www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Camera Traps Document Infant Corpse Carrying Behaviour in Multiple Unhabituated Chimpanzee Populations We demonstrate the efficacy of camera traps in capturing infant corpse carrying (ICC) in four chimpanzee populations across West and East Africa. Using camera trap data from seven wild, unhabituated ....

🤯 chimpanzees and infant corpse carrying behavior: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

It’s like Mark Morrison’s Return of the Mack but with huge mammals, I like it #science

Wildlife Wednesday: Biologist Welcomes Increased State Oversight of Invertebrate Species - New Mexico Wildlife Federation By Ben Neary, NMWF Conservation Director The legislative session that ended last month saw New Mexico lawmakers add invertebrates to the state’s definition of “wildlife,” making them subject to protec...

Admittedly I'm not hip enough on being up to speed about wildlife management for all 50 states, but this is the first time I've seen the state level include INVERTEBRATES as part of their state management and protection plan. Cool stuff: nmwildlife.org/wildlife-wed...

oriental whip #snake (Ahaetulla cf. prasina)
cardamom mountains, #Cambodia

🐍 thanks to Christian Ching, Law Ingg, Thong Ingg & Sareach Chea for species ID + capture 🐍 #tropical #biodiversity

must learn ASAP: 'prior predictive checks, cross-validation probability integral transforms, and pivot discrepancy measures' 🤯 #Bayesian #HierarchicalModel #GoodnessOfFit

there's gotta be more 'drones in ecology' papers than ecology papers that have actually used drones

Support for the US Endangered Species Act Is High and Steady Over the Past Three Decades Conservation professionals expect increased attempts to weaken the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) during the second Trump administration. As such, it is important to understand Americans’ level of s...

U.S. Endangered Species Act still strongly supported by citizens: conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

got other stuff to do but I was in a zone yesterday getting into the animal home range literature

probably THE best natural history sighting of my life so far… slow loris (I think Bengal slow loris Nycticebus bengalensis… but any primatologists feel free to confirm!) Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia 🇰🇭

Open and FAIR data sharing are building blocks to bolster biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia The tropical Southeast Asian region, with its unique geographical features, is home to a multitude of distinct species that are affected by various hu…

#FAIR #biodiversity #data I'm glad somebody said it: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A landscape connectivity map of Canada and the USA.

New research: Landscape connectivity across Canada and the USA. A seamless, high resolution connectivity map across both countries. 🧪🌎 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

sad on a Sunday night because my netlify GitHub website won’t deploy properly

សា្អតណាស់បង

now do Norm

Email sent to FFSP.

The Fulbright Foreign Student Program invites graduate students from abroad to come study in the US and guarantees funding for them to do so paid in a monthly stipend. Yesterday, some FFSP scholars received notification that they're only getting a week of their stipend.

There are a lot of people who didn’t even know the U.S. had an Agency for International Development last week but today, they are sure this .7% of the federal budget is misused.

Stick with me 🧵

Cold Temperatures Create Unique Flowers As winter settles in with colder temperatures, observant nature lovers may witness one of Jack Frost’s welcome surprises – frost flowers! Reminiscent of blown glass sculptures, these beauties are only...

not a flower person but you gotta love this during cold temperature events: www.arkansasheritage.com/blog/dah/202...

A close-up photo of a jaguar’s face, Overlay text reads “Call for nominations of experts for the second global assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Deadline: 28 March 2025, #GlobalAssessment2”

🌿Are you an interdisciplinary expert on #biodiversity & nature's contributions to people?

Here's your opportunity to be an author on the new @ipbes.net #GlobalAssessment2!🌍

🎯Academics, Indigenous knowledge-holders, practitioners etc.🧪

Apply by 28 March: www.ipbes.net/second-globa...

Tiger recovery amid people and poverty Recovery of large yet ecologically important carnivores poses a formidable global challenge. Tiger (Panthera tigris) recovery in India, the world’s most populated region, offers a distinct opportunity...

tiger re-introduction programs a conservation success in India 🐅🇮🇳

Everybody walks on their diasporic journey a little differently, choosing to take their own kind of steps

💯field work skills + understanding of natural history should always remain in the biologist's toolbox: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/MRWE5W...

Local morning iced coffee ☕️ #cambodia #kampuchea #phnompenh

Extinction of experience among ecologists Fieldwork-based research and education in ecology are under multiple threats and are progressively declining. We call for greater attention to this ongoing loss of direct field experience within the ecology community, as it could have widespread consequences for science and education, ultimately hindering efforts to address the ongoing biodiversity crisis.

Where are all the field studies?

This ⬇️ important but rather depressing paper describes how conducting, & crucially initiating, field studies is becoming harder & rarer.

A short 🧵 (and a call for more fieldwork)
www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Best holiday gift so far! Thanks Santa 🎁🎅🎄📔 ✏️

even baited a frustration foul from James. this Wells kid is going places

REUs/Summer Research 2024 List (Ecology and Evolution)

I started gathering a list for REUs/Summer research opportunities for undergraduate students in Ecology/Conservation/Evolutionary Biology. Feel share to share with any undergraduate students who may be interested in participating in *PAID* research.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...