I’m looking to recruit a postdoc to join my research group at University of Iowa to work on disturbance ecology and biodiversity! Start date flexible, lots of opportunity for skill development, collaboration, and mentorship. Will review applicants in mid-August! Link: gavinmjones.com/opportunities/

U. Iowa is hiring an open-rank TT prof. working on “environmental governance and policy in the context of the environmental, social, and/or economic drivers related to climate change from local to global scales” Join this vibrant and growing academic unit! More here: jobs.uiowa.edu/faculty/view...

New paper in Fire Ecology: what actually makes a wildfire "extreme"? Current definitions rely on rigid thresholds that don't hold up across ecosystems. We argue for judging fire behavior, ecological outcomes, and social impacts against historical baselines. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Read "War, climate change, and land use shape wildfire dynamics in Ukraine, 2001–2024" by Anastasiia Zymaroieva, Serhii Sydorenko, Olha Kunakh, Jens-Christian Svenning, and Olexander Zhukov in the #FireEcology Journal #SNFECO https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s42408-026-00527-y

Oh hello FIRST STUDY I WILL TEACH ABOUT THIS FALL

The #AspenAcresFire, still burning quite actively along southern Colorado Front Range & having destroyed ~200 structures thus far, has become an exceptionally complex & challenging event from a firefighting perspective due to a confluence of climate, weather, & geography. [Thread]

New article! We went to Tucson for a few weeks back in 2019 and looked at some plants and took quite a few soil samples. We found that buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare) invasion was associated with lower plant diversity, and soil carbon. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

NOAA has extended the highest-tier "extremely critical" fire weather risk into Saturday, and shifts the maximum risk zone eastward from the Great Basin to Rocky Mountain western slope. Multiple new wildfires, most likely lightning holdovers, are currently popping up in Utah.

New paper documenting impacts of drought on birds in the already arid SW US. 🦉🌐🌎 TLDR: It's not good. * Abundance declines in response to drought for most species * In this region drought-related declines in the south may be pushing ranges northward conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Very excited to see this paper out! Led by @schwilk.org, with @azhar06.bsky.social @ecologybrad.bsky.social @rachaelnolan.bsky.social @alefidelis.bsky.social @ioliverasmenor.bsky.social @dendromecon27.bsky.social @profalistairsmith.bsky.social bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Very neat new short course offered by @caltech.edu on computer vision for ecology! cv4ecology.caltech.edu/index.html

Mechanisms of coexistence are often unintuitive; Werner et al. explore species interactions across different environmental scenarios to bridge theoretical and empirical approaches to coexistence. 🧪🌍💚 Check out this great press summary of our recent AmNat paper! www.amnat.org/an/newpapers...

Excited for @kalebgoff.bsky.social's 1st dissertation chapter to be out w co-authors M Oldfather, J Nachlinger, B Smithers, @mikoontz.bsky.social, J & C Bishop & M Burke. Limited Directional Change in Mountaintop Plant Communities over 19 years in Western North America doi.org/10.1002/ecs2...

IMTs are quietly talking about what the current political environment means for this year's wildland fire suppression efforts, but it deserves a larger and more public consideration. 1/

Solidarity to my fellow decimates. ✊

“decimate” Despite my demographic, I think about the Roman Empire zero (0) times per day. But I do like words. Paul Brians taught me that “decimate” refers to eliminating 10% of people in an “unruly” unit as punishment. ~220k probies/~2.4m total… The Federal Service is being decimated.

Whew, been a busy weekend, happy to get this quick episode out to explain how these federal cuts will impact fire response this summer. Give it a listen at the link.

Ever wonder what snow in the swamp would look like? This is 5 miles into the Louisiana swamps in the Atchafalaya basin... it's unreal... having lived down there for the first 28 years of my life, we never saw anything like this. Smashed records. Curtesy of Garrett Roberts.

This is super cool. Such a success story.

Now out in @oikosjournal.bsky.social l.bsky.social led by Kaitlyn Barthell 🧪🌎🐝🏵️ Competition for floral resources among bumble bees intensifies at higher elevations. As climate change pushes new bumble bee species upslope, pressures of climate and competition mount. doi.org/10.1111/oik....

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when we imagine lives claimed by wildfire, we picture the flames. but the smoke is the real killer, claiming tens of thousands. and the victims can be far from the flames, dying long after the fire went out. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A nice summary of this recent research about that other ecological disturbance in the west and its rising impact on wildlife phys.org/news/2024-12...

Correct, Watch Duty does not use drones to obtain information.

New publication alert! Check out our paper on the “Governance of Indigenous data in open Earth systems science” co- led by myself and Dr. Katie Jones. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Looks like NIFC’s website is down?

Resources for Native peoples in the Los Angeles wildfires ictnews.org/news/resourc...

Let the social and legal backlash be brutal— there has to be no incentive to fly drones over active incidents. So dangerous, and it makes it so much harder to make a case for legitimate and needed drone operations in service to fire science and disaster management. www.latimes.com/california/s...

A disaster is a function of three things: the hazard itself, people's vulnerability to the hazard, and their exposure. @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social explains eloquently how the LA fires are a perfect storm of all three. Read more:

Reminder - it's easy to judge a situation from afar. You have to bring the safety home. How much do you know about your fire department? Do you know its average response time? Its capacity for responding to a natural disaster? Does your local gov have a plan for that kind of response? Is it public?

Okay, a couple of points to counter what this scientist says here. When Keeley says fires “were never very frequent” in SoCal, he’s talking about natural (lightning) ignitions and he’s ignoring the more/frequent, smaller-scale burns lit by Indigenous people.🧵 (1/4)

“But when the fire reaches the vast, un-tended zones that surround the green patches of hand-tended gathering areas, the dense, bone-dry fuel loads explode into fires of historic proportions…” The takeaway is that if people tend more land, fewer fires will explode into historic proportions. (4/4)

Great explainer of the increasingly thirsty atmosphere. The atmospheric sponge 🧽 in fact increases exponentially with rising temperatures.

International resource exchanges are vital for fire management of extreme fires and fire seasons. Canada has benefitted greatly from international partners each fire season, and I am glad to see CIFFC and individual provinces doing what they can for the California fires! 🔗 www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7426834

I love seeing the love for the Watch Duty app. They totally cracked the nut for how to get critical fire info to people in real time. Several other apps came before it and failed to take off, but I think the human in the loop set WD apart. The journalism/tech fusion seems key. www.watchduty.org

Wildfires are inevitable in the West. Widespread devastation need not be. It’s time to re-read this piece from @michaelwara.bsky.social on how to do this, by making communities more resistant to burning, and by having more effective approach to land management.

I know two things to be true: 1) People will rebuild here because they want to live in this magical place, and 2) these places will see fire again. I have no doubt. But I also know that you can rebuild and manage the land so that next time the houses won't burn down. I've seen it work.

As we watch the #wildfire tragedy in SoCal, I'm thinking about root causes, and solutions. I'm sure I'll be writing lots more reflections going forward, but for now, posting this @volts.wtf episode here on insurance. Is this the event that breaks the FAIR plan's back? www.volts.wtf/p/climate-ch...

You are going to see a lot of knee jerk, reactive, and very wrong takes. Be patient, and be a responsible consumer of information.

Incredibly relevant and timely research on climate whiplash, the consequences of which are unfolding in real time in the #losangeleswildfires 🔥🌎🧪

A satellite sensor (or camera) records data for different wavelengths of light based a normal range. The infrared (IR), which humans can't see, is really "bright" (max data values) for fire so we can detect small areas burning within a much larger pixel. When the whole pixel is burning...headlights.

We've been studying wildfire recovery for the last 4 years. It's a horrible mess. Many survivors think the worst is over when the fire ends, but then comes paperwork, weird federal rules, scams, etc. Some never rebuild or lose everything. Follow guidance from those who have been there, done that.

Here is the wildfire starter pack go.bsky.app/RmQuXhp

Follow @weatherwest.bsky.social for up to date fire info for #palisades and #eaton fires and new fires as they emerge through the night. Refer to evacuation maps, be ready to leave, and remember to look out for each other.

Happy New Year! I updated my webpage of envirionment-related scholarships, grants, & awards: www.aerinjacob.ca/funding--awa... It includes: * science * action & policy * communication * travel awards * international tho' emphasis on N Am, Africa, & women Please share. #ConservationFunding

Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes is quitting the @washingtonpost.com after having this cartoon killed