The Anti-Intellectualism of the Silicon Valley Elite How the self-styled know-it-alls atop the knowledge economy want to dismantle the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake

I recently re-read Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and now every time a Silicon Valley billionaire opens his mouth, I think about it. So I wrote about it for The Nation: www.thenation.com/article/soci...

How will evolution affect survival and yields of common fisheries species? A recent study by Jan Kozlowski, @djmmeeg.bsky.social @craig-white.bsky.social found that fish will evolve to survive warmer temperatures AND smaller sizes, reducing fisheries yields by ~50%
www.science.org/doi/full/10....

thanks for the shout out Robert! However, I would describe this more as temperature induced evolutions impacts on fisheries. Evolutionary impacts of fisheries is a different thing to me.

Great question! Range changes will happen for species where their niche (food, habitat) also changes with them: our model overestimates impacts on these. It’s unclear how many species can perfectly track temperature, we suspect most species are moving a bit but not enough to experience no warming

I emailed it Jeremy

Evolutionary adaptation to global change reduces sustainable fisheries yields Global warming is altering the fisheries that underpin food security, but projections of these impacts generally exclude evolutionary processes. We describe a model that forecasts how fish will adapt ...

Fish will have to adapt to a warming world, what will that adaptation do to fisheries yields? We answer that question today in Science. I’ll summarise our findings very briefly in this thread
www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

Evolutionary adaptation to global change reduces sustainable fisheries yields Global warming is altering the fisheries that underpin food security, but projections of these impacts generally exclude evolutionary processes. We describe a model that forecasts how fish will adapt ...

Out today in @science.org our paper on how evolutionary adaptation to warming will reduce fisheries yields. Please let me know if you need me to send you a copy. Summary of the paper coming soon. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

What’s the catch of the day? Warming oceans and evolution make fish less likely to be on the menu

Thanks to the authorship team, some amazing, thoughtful reviews and our groups. also check out the excellent commentary here www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We hope that our life history optimisation approach might be useful for exploring the impacts of adaptation to warming more generally. we usually think about evolutionary rescue as being a good thing: it is for the species of interest but it will not leave associated ecosystem services unscathed.

Summing across the largest the largest fisheries in the world, the preficted losses due to adaptation are staggering

But under more extreme warming, fisheries losses also become more extreme, yet another good reason why every bit of warming counts

There is quite a bit of variation but generally higher temperatures mean more evolution and therefore greater losses, under middle of the road warming, it looks like this

we find that evolution is good for fish fitness, fish regain some of their lost fitness if they adapt to warmer conditions. BUT this adaptation reduces fisheries yields, worsening the impacts of warming.

using this temperature = death proxy, when then ask how might fish life histories evolve to future warmer conditions, with their associated higher mortality rates. this approach allows us to model the ”vibe“ of temperature effects via their influence on mortality rather than any one specific effect.

We first look at ~3000 spp. and show that temperature is a good proxy for mortality rate, which in turn is a good predictor of key life history traits such as size, timing of maturity etc

We start with a life hostory optimisation model, the core of which was developed long ago by our first author Jan Kozlowski. I think Jan’s models never received the attention they deserved. These models optimise fitness for a given mortality regime, higher mortality = earlier maturation

Evolutionary adaptation to global change reduces sustainable fisheries yields Global warming is altering the fisheries that underpin food security, but projections of these impacts generally exclude evolutionary processes. We describe a model that forecasts how fish will adapt ...

Fish will have to adapt to a warming world, what will that adaptation do to fisheries yields? We answer that question today in Science. I’ll summarise our findings very briefly in this thread
www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

Evolutionary adaptation to global change reduces sustainable fisheries yields Global warming is altering the fisheries that underpin food security, but projections of these impacts generally exclude evolutionary processes. We describe a model that forecasts how fish will adapt ...

Out today in @science.org our paper on how evolutionary adaptation to warming will reduce fisheries yields. Please let me know if you need me to send you a copy. Summary of the paper coming soon. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Principles of experimental design for ecology and evolution Here I argue that we do not discuss experimental design, often until it is too late. This editorial seeks to begin a conversation about how and where to replicate appropriately.

The principles of experimental design in ecology and evolution has 20k downloads, but unfortunately I still have to reject ~20% of papers without review because they lack replication at the right level. More discussion among mentors and mentees please.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

I agree. I have been thinking that conferences should have sessions where people can get feedback on their plans (rather than executed plans). There could even be ‘clinics’ people could visit to gi e their designs a ‘check-up’. But in the meantime, we just need more conversations about design.

Principles of experimental design for ecology and evolution Here I argue that we do not discuss experimental design, often until it is too late. This editorial seeks to begin a conversation about how and where to replicate appropriately.

The principles of experimental design in ecology and evolution has 20k downloads, but unfortunately I still have to reject ~20% of papers without review because they lack replication at the right level. More discussion among mentors and mentees please.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Just noting that ARC is still on X/Twitter. Despite it now being clear that that platform produces child exploitation materials, they remain active there.

If you interact with ARC staff, I really think they need to answer this question. It's moved being simply "disconnected from researchers" to … 🤢

Hermaphrodites have lower metabolic rates than gonochores Abstract. Hermaphroditism, where an individual can reproduce as both male and female, offers some clear reproductive advantages. Simultaneous hermaphroditi

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Is hermaphrodism less common in animals because it is energetically more costly? George Jarvis and @djmmeeg.bsky.social have analysed 536 species of marine invertebrates and found that hermaphrodites require approximately 27% less energy than gonochores on average.

doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Hypothesised scaling relationships between body size and population density and energy use (metabolism and energy flux) for predators and secondary consumers

❗New paper alert❗
The 2nd publication from Poppy Romera's Masters is just out in @natcomms.nature.com
We find that adherence of 180 soil food webs to the energy equivalence rule strongly depends on the measure of energy use, trophic level, and food web structure. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share our study testing competing theories on the energy dynamics of hermaphroditism! Grateful to @djmmeeg.bsky.social for guidance, to Thomas Brey for metabolic rate data, and to Deborah Charlesworth for feedback. Thanks also to the editors and reviewers at Proc B. @royalsociety.org

Re-upping for a different timezone

Hermaphrodites have lower metabolic rates than gonochores Abstract. Hermaphroditism, where an individual can reproduce as both male and female, offers some clear reproductive advantages. Simultaneous hermaphroditi

Darwin speculated that it was energetically costly to be an hermaphrodite. He thought that might explain why they were relatively rare in animals. Our paper out today tested this conjecture for the first time.
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

We suspect that hermaphroditism evolves in low food availability environments, which also select for lower metabolic rates but this remains speculative (and testable?). We’re very grateful to those who provided data, the review team and also the great Deborah Charlesworth for reading earlier drafts.

We find that contrary to Darwin’s prediction, hermaphrodites have lower metabolic rates than gonochores. This difference is not driven by motility or size