A chipmunk on the forest floor

A panda feeding

A squirrel with black tufty ears eating a nut

Supposedly visiting Northeast Forestry University in Harbin China for the trees, and teaching but gotta say, the mammals are pretty cute too!

🌱 Plant dominance can be predicted from soil water flow because root traits are conserved within species 👉️ buff.ly/g6pDmbd

Check out this growing thread of papers from the Special Feature on 20 Years of Evidence Based Conservation by @jappliedecology.bsky.social associate editor and guest editor for the special feature @philmartin.bsky.social

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...

Photo of a massive river red gum looking from its massive trunk up towards its backlit canopy through its impressive gnarly branches. It looks radiant against a blue sky

Photo of a massive river red gum from a different position but still looking from its massive trunk up towards its backlit canopy through its impressive gnarly branches. It looks radiant against a blue sky

Always a joy and privilege when you meet a venerable tree being 💚💚💚

A kauri tree looking towards the canopy.

PhD opportunity- fully funded with stipend, fees and project costs covered. Explore the role of phosphite in treating kauri dieback disease. Applications due 8th May. Please spread the word!
newzealandecology.org/phd-explorin...

📢 PhD opportunity @aucklanduni.bsky.social

Exploring the role of phosphite for kauri dieback disease treatment

Click the link to find out more about this exciting opportunity to make a difference for kauri conservation 🌱

@loraxcate.bsky.social

newzealandecology.org/phd-explorin...

A kauri tree looking towards the canopy.

PhD opportunity- fully funded with stipend, fees and project costs covered. Explore the role of phosphite in treating kauri dieback disease. Applications due 8th May. Please spread the word!
newzealandecology.org/phd-explorin...

📢 Are you an early-career researcher with a passion for plant ecology and data analytics? Lincoln University is offering a three year postdoc looking at online trade and plant invasions 🌱

Click the link for more info!

newzealandecology.org/three-year-p...

Register now for the IPBES online dialogue on the landmark Business and Biodiversity Assessment Report. Discover how IPBES products are being used in decision-making for nature and business.

🗓️ Save the date: 21 April 2026, 11 a.m.–1 p.m. CEST

Register here: www.ipbes.net/node/97637

🌲🌳 PhD opportunity: Forest Vulnerability to Hotter Droughts

Interested in forest ecosystems, climate extremes & tree stress resilience?

🎓 Dual PhD (KIT 🇩🇪 + Melbourne 🇦🇺)
🔬 Plant Ecophysiology Lab, Garmisch-Partenkirchen 🇩🇪
🌍 +1-year research stay 🇦🇺

👉 Apply here: t1p.de/g39co

‘It’s just madness’: Trump administration to close three-quarters of Forest Service research stations Between funding cuts, facility closures, and the inevitable resignations that will follow, there’s virtually no way for the Forest Service to continue to do research at its current level or quality, w...

My big takeaway from reporting this story is that it's not JUST about the Forest Service.

The closure of these stations threatens to upend a delicate system of mutually beneficial collaboration and resource sharing, and the impacts will ripple out far beyond the Forest Service itself.

Extreme weather scientists warn of impending funding drought 'Some nerd sitting in an office' doesn't seem like exciting research to fund but it's answering urgent questions about severe weather, a climate scientist says.

Complex systems approaches have huge potential to improve our ability to predict, prepare for and recover from increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

💯

With worsening water quality in groundwater, rivers and lakes, now is not the time to integrate MfE into a larger ministry. #NZPol

Ecologists of Australia - has there been an update to Lesley Hughes' excellent 2003 paper on climate change in Austral Ecology?

I'm looking for reviews on the current knowledge of CC impacts on biodiversity in Australia.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

We are looking forward to ITMN seminar #30 with Ruiling Lu to learn about tree mortality in Australian forests 🌳 🌲 🌏

Come and join us!
👇🏽

A red candle glowing in the dark next to a photo of me with baby Callum sleeping at 6 weeks of age.

20 years ago today, we joined the bereaved parents club when Callum died from complications of Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrone at 16 months of age. It doesn't get any easier and this year I'm feeling for families losing loved ones in senseless war. 💔

A reminder to come along to our community event celebrating local biodiversity in Kirikiriroa. And between 24-27 April get out in nature snapping pics & uploading observations to iNaturalist for the City Nature Challenge 🍃 🪲 🐞 🐦 🍄

“There has been more than one oil “shock” every decade since the 1970s. Earth Sciences says there is now a 50% chance of major flooding in a New Zealand city at least every year. But the government seems to think these things are not happening.”

A masterclass in outlining clear, viable actions 👇

🌿🌳Our new paper, led by the brillant @alyssakullberg.bsky.social, shows that trees acclimate to warming by preserving thermoregulation. Yet, with hot droughts, higher thermotolerance cannot compensate when hydraulic stress prevents leaf cooling. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @wslresearch.bsky.social

The government has boxed itself in over fuel saving strategies – but there is a way out Promoting fuel saving measures as vital to energy security would help frame the oil shock as a technical problem to be solved, not a political issue to be fought.

Every effective tool for reducing fuel demand right now (free PT, cycling, EVs, lower speed limits) is a policy the NZ coalition government has spent two years dismantling.

My new piece in The Conversation on why they've gone quiet and how they get out of it.
theconversation.com/the-governme...

Long-term studies are vital to understanding how species and ecosystems are responding to climate change and other environmental stressors, but difficult to sustain under typical short-term grant cycles. LTER has been funding these since 1980.

This is breaking something that can’t be replaced.

What if contact with nature could be part of the medicine?

Growing scientific evidence supports the role of nature-based interventions, including nature prescriptions, to promote health. 🏡

On this 🌍#WorldHealthDay, let’s #StandWithScience and reconnect with nature.

🔗🧪 https://ow.ly/roJT50YEO3f

NSF LTER program “archived”.

LTER=“Long Term Ecological Research”.

This program has been incredibly successful, incredibly frugal for what they accomplish, and…of course…targeted by evil know-nothings.

My heart is breaking.

"The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding."

It’s important to remember that everything was perfectly fine before we had data centers and we simply do not need them

Totally. And the racial and gender-based bias shown in the Fellowship cohort provides the foundations for that more extreme racism and sexism to thrive.

So many good people for sure. Such a pity.

Lack of charisma is a big part of the problem, for sure but for me, the lack of authenticity is the bigger issue.
They just don't care and they never will.