🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 How many species of insect are there?  A seemingly simple question, but one that has been 'bugging' scientists for years.  Our work out today suggests that there are millions more than we had previously expected.  doi.org/10.1073/pnas... @gdfcf.bsky.social

GERMANY IS AN OVEN 41.5c Möckern-Drewitz HOTTEST DAY IN GERMAN HISTORY 417 RECORDS BROKEN ALLOVER THE COUNTRY 40 stations >40C ! See Thread with the all time records courtesy of Mtwetter (many pages !)

When I first spotted this butterfly a couple of hours ago, the first thing I had to do was stop my hands shaking. It's one of the rarest butterflies in France, a vanishing species in much of Europe. It's the mountain Apollo (Parnassius Apollo). Just in time for #InsectThursday #lepidoptera

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) was a pioneering naturalist, entomologist & scientific illustrator whose meticulous artwork & observations: 🦋 Revolutionized the study of insects 🐜 Laid early groundwork for #ecology 🐞 Permanently changed how we understand insect life It's #InsectWeek #WomenInSTEM

It's probably time European journalists wrapped their heads around Heat Index (temp + relative humidity). In high humidity, sweating is less efficient, making heat worse, e.g.: Experiencing 35°C in London UK (70% RH) is more dangerous than 50°C in Phoenix Arizona (15% RH)

10/10 no notes inpreparation.substack.com/p/opinion-i-...

Israeli attack kills famed turtle sanctuary ecologist in Lebanon |

Fresh off the press! 📄We find that crop fields and semi-natural grasslands support complementary #biodiversity across #Europe. Semi-natural habitats alone are insufficient to ensure farmland biodiversity - biodiversity-friendly management of crop fields is essential. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Dat jullie allemaal even oppassen. Vlaggetjes of steun uitspreken voor ‘terroristische organisatie’ kan je binnenkort gevangenisstraf van max. 3 jaar opleveren. Met dank aan D66… En niet vergeten: VVD bepaalt het liefst zelf - met extreemrechts - wat zoal ‘terroristisch’ is, bv. Antifa. Of XR.

A direct result of continuous victimisation, gaslighting and deliberate disinformation. Most of all an utter failure of the UK media.

Our latest meta-analysis on how restoration practices affect forest biodiversity is now out in Conservation Biology: conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🧪

For #MothersDay : Charley Harper (USA, 1922-2007) “Momatee” Original gouache on artist board c.1960s; later published in Jan. 1972 issue of Ford Times Magazine www.facebook.com/share/p/15ZM... Lithograph: www.charleyharperartstudio.com/momatee.html #Manatees

Meet #Licinus cassideus — a beetle that hunts snails, loves sun-scorched calcareous grasslands, and hadn't been seen in #Unterfranken since 1955. After being undetected for 71 years, we found it again in its typical habitat. #Carabidae #beetles #biodiversity #fieldwork @ecoresearchzoo3.bsky.social

World Bee Day is coming! 🐝 But 20 May is also a day for all pollinators, including flies. True flies (dipterans) are essential pollinators! 🪰 Read the paper about dipterans: doi.org/10.1111/eea.... Learn more about World Bee Day: www.fao.org/world-bee-da... #WorldBeeDay #Diptera

Flies (Diptera) contribute substantially to pollination and biological control. They visit approximately 72% of the world's major crops and dominate pollination networks in alpine, arctic and shaded habitats where bees are scarce. #pollinators #flies onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

We currently are looking for a postdoctoral research associate (3 years with possibility to extend) with experience in community ecology, and ideally a good match with our group profile; biodiversity, land use change and urban ecology. Please share for max reach www.lss.ls.tum.de/fileadmin/w0...

I can't upload half of my posts, because apparently "failed to load blob"

New in @science.org ‼️ In the most comprehensive study to date, we show that wildlife trade is driving animal-to-human zoonotic spillover at a planetary scale, with +1 spillover per host every 10 years. Live animal markets and illegal trade pose even greater risks. 🔓 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

What a great idea for a special issue! Sometimes you learn more from failure than from success 🫠

Once upon a time I just admired nudis and sea slugs. But it was not enough. Now apparently I'm creating an R package to celebrate their colour palettes? 😅 First up, my Sydney fave, Hypselodoris bennetti. #rstats #nudibranch #dataviz 🦑🐙🧪 #marinelife #invertebrates

5 years ago I joined a field work campaign in the stunningly beautiful Swedish primary forests, still one of my all-time favourite fieldwork experiences!🌲🌿 Now there is a new study out lead by Didac Pascual and Anders Ahlström from Lund University www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

When the top 10% of consumers make up half of all spending, the economy can at the same time be technically going well while the majority of people struggle massively. This is the US right now. Hope that helps when thinking about societal problems.

‪ 🌳 Do you want to contribute to research on how humans perceive forests? Take this quick, anonymous 10-min survey 🌲 👉 www.biodiful.org#/forest This will help us explore how people experience forest biodiversity! Please share on 🦋 & tag @biodiful.bsky.social to reach more participants 🙏💚 🌐🌍🦤🦑🪴🍁🧪

Well done, @springernature.com ! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

“Measured coastal sea level is higher than assumed in most hazard assessments…the measured values suggest that with 1 m of relative sea-level rise… 48–68% more people (increasing estimates to 77–132 million) would fall below sea level.” www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Unveiling the urban colonization of the Asian water monitor (Varanus salvator) across its distribution range using citizen science peerj.com/articles/173...

Good article, but the framing is wrong. There is not a dearth of interest in taxonomy. There is a scarcity of funding and positions, which is a deliberate choice by funding agencies and institutions. The youth love taxonomy! It's the olds that are failing to meet their passion!

Years ago in another life I gave a guest lecture at The Hague warning “AI weapons” could be invoked to remove accountability for war crimes from the chain of command. I said “there are no autonomous weapons, only unsupervised ones,” and sadly it seems I was cooking with that one

New paper alert! "Estimating global bee species richness and taxonomic gaps" suggests that we have thousands of bee species left to describe and decades of taxonomic work ahead of us. We also provide the methods needed to apply more broadly :) doi.org/10.1038/s414...

guys, come on now

New paper out in @jappliedecology.bsky.social! We investigated how forest structural heterogeneity and climate influence temperate dung beetles in production forests. 🪲

Periodic reminder that we should avoid testing the Normality of the response variable. For a linear model, what matters is the Normality of residuals (and not that much). Visual checks better than test. #statistics

Wat een belachelijk en #misleidend artikel! Wie de moeite neemt de wetenschappelijke publicatie waarnaar verwezen wordt, er op na te lezen, trekt een hele andere conclusie. Uit dat artikel blijkt dat er helemaal geen sprake is van een duidelijke linkse dominantie op de universiteiten! 1/4

Dr. Aletta Jacobs was born #OTD in 1854. + First woman officially to attend a Dutch university + First female physician in the #Netherlands, 1879 + Founded the world's first birth control clinic, Amsterdam, 1882 + Led women's rights & suffrage campaigns #WomenInSTEM

Has @elsevierconnect.bsky.social hit a new low? I just recieved a demanding email imforming me that my review was a negative three days late ... three days before the deadline for my review. This is honestly not ok.

reading about organisms that aren’t your specialty is like margins of the quorbus eplungulate, ploobular processes bent posteriorly towards the foobulum define term “eplungulate” - lacking plungae. synonym: thubulous

🔍 We’re hiring! Our chair is looking for a motivated Researcher to join our team! 🌳 The aim of the project is to analyse insect communities and their responses to different forest structural conditions. 🪲🦋 We’re looking forward to your application. 🌲📩 www.greenjobs.de/stellenanzei...

Alongside “AI colonialism”, the other big worry with this is that modelling results are never confronted with reality, they exist in some kind of desk-based bubble. All models are wrong, only some are useful. It’s by going out & touching the grass that we can sort the useful from the nonsensical.

Calling on all forest disturbance experts: Please consider contributing to our study on global forest disturbance change, and help resolve the nuances of changing forest disturbance regimes. More details and survey here: www.lss.ls.tum.de/edfm/disturb...

Hunter-gatherers in southern Africa laced their stone arrow tips with poison roughly 60,000 years ago, a new #ScienceAdvances study finds. The discovery pushes back the timeline for poison weapon use from the mid-Holocene to the Late Pleistocene. https://scim.ag/4aQDXqI

DFG erlaubt Einsatz von KI in der Begutachtung. Wenn wir jetzt noch die AI dazu kriegen, die komplette Forschung zu machen, haben wir den Menschen komplett von der Last des Forschungsprozzeses befreit und er kann sich komplett auf wichtige Dinge wie Reisekostenerstattungsanträge konzentrieren.

There is impossible wonder in the forests of city state Singapore. I find indescribable magic in the shiny eyes of this beautiful, peaceful Sunda Colugo.

At the start of the year I hit 2,000 species on @inaturalist.bsky.social and set myself the goal of adding 1,000 more this year. I finish the year with 1,600 new species recorded. Enormous thanks to the 635 identifiers who helped along the way! 🙌 #iNaturalist #Biodiversity

Suffragette Christmas card from the Women's Social and Political Union, 1909. UK.#Womensart

Come work with us! #PhD position on #ecosystem and #biodiversity effects of large #herbivores on the Eurasian steppes now announced: www.euraxess.de/jobs/395512 Nice combination of fieldwork and meta-analysis, co-supervised by @jonastrepel.bsky.social and ejlundgren.github.io

Excited to launch the new improved Reproducible Code guide from @britishecologicalsociety.org @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social FREE online here! www.britishecologicalsociety.org//wp-content/... Amazing work by some very talented ECRs. We hope it’s useful!

Fascinated to learn that we are still discovering new species at the highest rate ever. Mapping Earth's biodiversity is far from over, and while we learn more and more about it, let's protect what we do know as well as we can! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A place-based assessment of biodiversity intactness in sub-Saharan Africa Clements+ doi.org/10.1038/s415... based on "place-based knowledge of 200 African biodiversity experts" approach can be used "to integrate contextual, place-based knowledge into multiscale" biodiversity assessments

Nice demonstration of different pollinator species "pulling" floral morphology in different directions for optimal pollen deposition, in two South African wildflower species 🌿 buff.ly/m0f1Fp2