2026 is going to be a big year! I'll be starting (tomorrow!) as an Assistant Professor of Climate Change Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Meet the 2026 team for the ESA Southwest Chapter! 🌵☀️ We're super excited to serve our community and support your science in any way we can! Got questions or ideas? Send them our way! Stay tuned for introduction posts of each of our amazing new leaders!

Here's a great new article from a Stanford University publication about the growing threat of Valley fever in the West. Several of my colleagues and I were interviewed for it. andthewest.stanford.edu/2025/buried-...

Grateful to see this beautiful #biocrust on a trip through Canyonlands National Park in the Maze District. It is always a gift to see such intact crust in these remote places

Attention publishers: Announcing the Guidelines for Indigenous Data Governance in Scholarly Publishing Join this session to learn more about the recently published Guidelines and how you can help! nisoplusglobalonline.cadmore.media/Home

Happy to share a new lab @jgrbiogeo.bsky.social paper: "Drought Response in Three Conifer Species Detected by Sap Flow and Proximal Thermal Remote Sensing" led by the amazing Daphna Uni w/ @mostafaj.bsky.social others @uarizona.bsky.social agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

New paper out in the American Journal of Botany with some of my science role models, @michalaphillips.bsky.social @ecology-awesome.bsky.social @kristinayoung.bsky.social and also Cara Lauria and Ana Giraldo-Silva. bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

Happy to share our recent paper using Ecological Site Groups to better understand plant community changes &their relationship with wildfire & drought on the Colorado Plateau. Part of a fantastic project working with land managers & scientists alike. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Happy to share a new lab @newphyt.bsky.social paper, Fangyue Zhang et al., "Temporal repackaging of rainfall magnifies negative impacts of vapor pressure deficit on semiarid ecosystem productivity" @uarizona.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/KYZDXV...

Fantastic paper by Scott Ferrenberg & others exploring the role of nurse plant shading vs soil fertility for dryland plant recruitment and diversity👇 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Grazing Modulates the Multiscale Spatial Structure of Dryland Vegetation 🔗 buff.ly/AZABRtK

Don't miss it! 👇!

Way excited for Savannah's defense next week! If you love biogeochemistry and thinking about potential for soil carbon management, mark your calendar for Monday, July 28th @ 11:00 AM MDT (or stop by campus if you're in Moab 😉) Public Zoom Link: usu.zoom.us/j/8144285688...

Who is doing #biocrust work in the alpine in North America? Let's talk! I want more field sites here 👇🤩

When we tell people that #biocrust can be a dominant form of ground cover in drylands, it can be hard to picture. Here's a perfect example from Canyonlands National Park in Utah showing how extensive biocrust cover can be!

Our new review is out led by @michalaphillips.bsky.social examining #biocrust recovery amidst climate change 👇 bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Climate change could shift the geographical distribution of biocrusts in the Qaidam Basin 📊🌏 Uses high-resolution biocrust maps to establish a monitoring & management baseline. Results underscore the importance of considering spatial heterogeneity 🌐🧪 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Land is life. But with 2 billion hectares of land degraded globally, restoring ecosystems & building drought resilience has never been more urgent. On #DesertificationandDroughtDay find out how we can restore land. Together, we can be #UNited4land: www.unep.org/gef/focal-ar... @unccd.bsky.social

"Now, there is only a trickle of water following the driest winter in decades." Rippling effects of #globalchange in #drylands

Our newly published paper was really exciting to work on because it uses models to help determine how effective a restoration action might be at meeting a goal (in our case wind erosion reduction) BEFORE costly efforts are implemented onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Nice new paper out by @kristinayoung.bsky.social This was one of her dissertation chapters and some offshoot work from our fungal loop project. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Excellent piece by @kristinayoung.bsky.social on the critical threat facing the USGS's Southwest Biological Science Center. We must rally and fight this senseless attack on science!!

For those interested in the history of ecology: a nice Earth Day piece on the scientific legacy of the Desert Laboratory in Tuscon and the role that Carnegie Science played in supporting early ecological research. 🧪🌐🌍🌎🌏🌵 carnegiescience.edu/news/desert-...

Science is still happening! Hopeful that our new paper can serve as a resource for those seeking or making digital seed-based restoration tools: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Send me a message if you need access @coleoptara.bsky.social @restorecal.bsky.social @magdagarbowski.bsky.social

Biocrusts—tiny communities of fungi, bacteria, and algae on dryland soils—have fascinated scientists for decades A new review in @cambridgeup.bsky.social #CPDrylands by Rosentreter & Eldridge explores key trends in biocrust research in North America doi.org/10.1017/dry....

Soil #biodiversity is critical for the health of humans, animals & the environment. However, global change threatens our soil ecosystems. This Essay discusses the importance of soil biodiversity in the face of global stressors & the major knowledge gaps precluding its conservation🧪 ▶️ plos.io/4hSbLUa

With so much weighing on the scientific community right now, I find solace in the resilience of the natural world—like these beautiful biocrusts continually holding the desert together.

Biological soil crusts are incredible soil stabilizers, creating complex structures when intertwined with sand particles. Nature’s engineering at its finest! #Biocrusts #SoilStabilization #Drylands

🌵✨ When we say biocrusts are "the coral reefs of the desert," we mean it—just look at these vibrant colors! 🟠🟡🔵🔴 They're also reef-like in their roles stabilizing soil, reducing erosion, retaining moisture, and fixing nitrogen 🌿

This stunning Syntrichia #biocrust moss kept photosynthesizing for days after the last precip event—showing how crucial winter CO2 capture is in this semiarid ecosystem.

🌍📢 Call for Papers: Land Degradation & Development Special Issue on "Combating Wind Erosion & Sand/Dust Storms: Advances in Monitoring, Prediction, & Land Management" 🌪️ 🗓️ Submit by: Nov 30, 2025 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

Some studies have previously reported that certain microorganisms can travel through smoke and/or dust over long distances, a phenomenon that may increase in regions prone to aridification. Drought does not appear to be a problem for fungal growth, which remains stable. 🧪 doi.org/10.1038/s414...

The UNCCD COP16 focussed on #desertification and #landdegradation took place this month. Many #landrestoration efforts focus on tree planting 🌳, but this may cause more harm than good for planetary #security. Read more 👇 www.planetarysecurityinitiative.org/news/un-conv...

Themes, objectives, goals and failures of COP16 #desertification that ended this Saturday. Did we achieve any of the goals set? Read @emanuelebompan.bsky.social article here: www.renewablematter.eu/en/cop16-des...

Trait variability can buffer populations against stress, but harnessing this for restoration is proving tricky. Lab alum Ella Samuel finds that diversity in seed source plant populations is not predictive of variability or performance in a common garden. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Excited to announce the next International Biocrust Reading Group Meeting! 🪴🌍 We'll meet on January 7th at 17:00 GMT to discuss the latest in biocrust research. Interested in joining? Send me a message! #Biocrust #Ecology #ScienceCommunity @michalaphillips.bsky.social

Land is life. Yet millions of hectares of healthy and productive land are lost every year. We need urgent action to reverse land degradation. After all, our land is our future. Watch the UNCCD and @UNEP.org led #COP16Riyadh #LandDay again here: webtv.un.org/en/schedule/...

"Land is facing degradation on a global scale", write PIK director Johan Rockström and Ibrahim Thiaw from UNCCD. Our relationship with land must change; it's the foundation of life and the key link between crises like #biodiversity loss & #climatechange. impact.economist.com/sustainabili...

Nathalie Seddon encourages ecologists to establish radical collaborations with Indigenous communities to transform nature based solutions for effective solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss. #BES2024

🌍📢 Call for Papers: Land Degradation & Development Special Issue on "Combating Wind Erosion & Sand/Dust Storms: Advances in Monitoring, Prediction, & Land Management" 🌪️ 🗓️ Submit by: Nov 30, 2025 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

Human-caused global warming helped make more than three-quarters of Earth’s land become drier in recent decades, according to a new UN report that called the shift a “global, existential peril.”

Spotted: Stunning hoar frost crystals crowning the biocrust! With these persistently wet conditions, there’s likely significant CO2 uptake happening within these photosynthetic primary producers 🌿✨ #Biocrusts #Ecology #Drylands

List of the wonderful people working with biocrust. Let me know if you want in on the fun. All biocrust enthusiasts are invited!

Happy #WorldSoilDay! How much #carbon is stored in Kenya's #rangeland #soils? Find out what we're doing in the #CarboGrass project and the #LivestockClimateInitiative to find the answer! @ilri-cgiar.bsky.social @cgiar.org @lutzmerbold.bsky.social www.ilri.org/news/how-muc...

Meet the 'Land Heroes' who are fighting desertification ->UN News | #Desertification #Land | More info from EcoSearch

Here's some frosty #biocrust from Southeast Utah, USA to add some sparkle to your Wednesday morning. Photo by the amazing John Watson

Castilleja chromosa, our Desert Paintbrush, blooming north of Green Mountain Reservoir. Paintbrush are hemiparasitic #nativeplants 🌿 #FallBackFlowers #FallBack to June 3

New Preprint! We identified Pseudomonas in wild liverworts and explored what makes them virulent. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#Desertification: The degraded area is already 15 million km2, an area greater than Antarctica, the scientific report says, and it calls for an urgent course correction to avoid land abuse “irretrievably compromising Earth’s capacity to support human and environmental wellbeing” 🌐🌎