Killer tortoises! I showed this in my island biology lecture yesterday and it shocked the students 😱 Here's the paper describing the behaviour: www.cell.com/current-biol... 🧪🌏

Found an additional graphic that gets even more of these quotes together. I've kept "I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees" pinned above my desk since I first started studying evolutionary biology as an undergraduate. So relatable to get extremely frustrated with your study system.

Forests need to change to keep or take in more carbon! Fantastic and insightful paper led by the genius @christinadollinger.bsky.social

As climate and disturbance regimes change, forest reorganization is key to maintain the forest carbon sink. Great new work led by @christinadollinger.bsky.social w/ @monicagturner.bsky.social, @akkym.bsky.social and many others. dx.doi.org/10.1029/2025...

Save the date! 48th New Phytologist Symposium: Forest interactions 📅 13–16 October 2026 📍 Leysin, Switzerland www.newphytologist.org/events/48-nps #PlantScience

The mainstream aim to restore “native reference ecosystems” Reminds me of people of my age who go to see touring bands from their youth Trying to recreate something that never quite existed And has limited relevance in a changing world doi.org/10.1111/ecog...

Climate warming is generally making trees grow faster, but the greater effect is that tree growth is becoming more unpredictable, creating a threat to the stability of forests. New paper by Li & He (2026). 🧪🌏🌐🌲🌳

"Closer-to-nature" forest management has been proposed as a way to reconcile biodiversity and ecosystem services, especially under a changing climate. But can it work? And how strong is the evidence? In this paper, we synthesized knowledge from Central Europe: doi.org/10.1007/s407...

One fire might not be a problem for forests - multiple fires can become a problem - super important and insightful paper by @albavianasoto.bsky.social on mapping and analyzing reburn occurence in the forests of southern Europe 🌲🔥🌳🔥

I feel extremely privileged to do a PhD in the first place and even more with such an amazing and fun crowd 💫 Thanks to everyone for this amazing writing retreat with the @edfm-tum.bsky.social PhDs!

For a change some good news, as a lot of people are working on this world to get better 💨 ☀️💪 -> electricity is Germany is getter cleaner and cheaper

The @edfm-tum.bsky.social PhDs visited the Šumava Nationalpark today 🇨🇿🌲 Thank you a lot to Pavel Becka for guiding us through this beautiful forest in winter coating ❄️🌲❄️ and answering all our curious questions! We talked about regeneration, disturbances and the park‘s (landuse) history

Early Arthropods xkcd.com/3199/

Post-disturbance recovery is not the same across the alps: Warmer temperatures support recovery in the Central and Eastern Alps but hinder it in the Southwest Alps. Amazing work led by @lisa-mandl.bsky.social et al. doi.org/10.1016/j.ag...

Spring drought is likely more problematic for tree regeneration than summer drought 🌱🔅 Super insightful paper led by @munozmazon.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.ag...

How long would you survive with no DNA? What the latest What If? video in collaboration with @minuteearth.bsky.social! www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3oL...

HIRING! We are looking for a new PhD student to work on insects in deadwood, effects of microclimate and land use. This is part of the Biodiversity Exploratories @bexplo.bsky.social and will use a new experiment using rain-out shelters in different regions of Germany. EU driver´s licence required.

Massive update to the Global Wood Density Database out today @newphyt.bsky.social led by the brilliant Fabian Fischer. What an amazing community resource! 🧪🍁🌐 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

PCA is one of those techniques that sounds unreasonable (yeah sure we all want to fit a p-dimensional ellipsoid to our data) but turns out to be a reasonable solution to a wide range of problems. Also: I do hope stackexchange has been archived, because it is my gen's library of alexandria

Getting my new slides in shape. I have it on good authority that the typeface I have chosen is "woke" (aka sans serif)

I love these @jocelynanderson.bsky.social tufties, peak performance

🚨Paper alert🚨 Check out Beibei Zhang's latest work out today @royalsocietypublishing.org where we track the 3D structural recovery of Australia's Great Western Woodlands following wildfires over a chronosequence spanning half a millenia!🌳🛰️🔥🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

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...

Was looking for a good brain break between work sessions and ended upstarting the @edfm-tum.bsky.social PhD Break Challenge: Finish the Arboretum puzzle 🌳🧩

Disturbed areas are preferential habitat for red deer throughout the day, because they combine forage with safety. Great insights from combining remotely sensed disturbance data with GPS collar data in Berchtesgaden National Park, led by J. Eggers and R. Reiner, doi.org/10.1016/j.fo...

An amazing applicationof lidar data to uncover recovery patterns of forest structre! 🌱🌳

Study area shape matters when tracking species range shifts & we may underestimate longitudinal range shifts to the benefit of latitudinal range shifts, potentially undermining drivers other than T°C 🌡 🌐🌏🌎🌍🧪🐠🐍🦋🦉🦇🌳🌲 shorturl.at/prp63

A new paper by @lisa-mandl.bsky.social! By linking satellite time series with ground inventories (contributed by >50 coauthors across Europe), Lisa quantified the scale-sensitivity of landscape effects on forest recovery, showing the importance of landscape context. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Do you like forests and computer models? 🌳🧑‍💻 Within the Future Forests excellence cluster, we are hiring two modellers for 7 year (!) positions here in Freiburg. A scientific coordinator role: uni-freiburg.de/en/job/00004... And and a scientific programmer role: uni-freiburg.de/en/job/00004...

Mortality from fire & wind is increasing in Europe's forests, but what about biotic disturbances? A new, massive dataset compiled by @thlasny.bsky.social and many local experts shows a mixed picture: While wood borers increase strongly, defoliator activity generally decreases doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

Quote of the day from my fellow PhD colleague: "We don't do things because they are easy, but because we thought they were easy."

Monty Python understood p-hacking

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

My PhD student Selim and I are looking for a motivated Master student to take on a pretty cool challenge: testing the NASA GEDI L4B biomass product across mainland France using a version of the algorithm Selim has been developing in his PhD -building on IGN’s LiDAR HD and NFI data. Pls share! :)

Ever tried to destroy a (simulated) forest? Dive into @christinadollinger.bsky.social newest paper to see if one can succeed 😉

What a privilege to write papers and to think with such a beautiful autumn right next to me 🍁🍂

🛰️

New paper in Ecological Applications! Management that mimics historical mosaics of fire severity could promote postfire tree regeneration under future climate change. Thanks to co-authors @monicagturner.bsky.social @rupertseidl.bsky.social @christinadollinger.bsky.social @knowlton.bsky.social

If it is not yet on your bucket list, put it on! 📋Dance on a „Cat Empire“ concert ✅

Had an amazing time at FoWiTa in Freiburg 🌲🌳 ✅ new connections ✅ reconnecting to (science) friends ✅ hosted my first session ✅presenting my two core PhD chapters ✅ insightful excursion ✅ new fodder for thoughts Great @edfm-tum.bsky.social representation with @johannesmohr.bsky.social 🚀

Our research in the National Park Berchtesgaden - both in the field and in silico - was reported on by NANO. The segment is in German and starts at minute 7:37 www.zdf.de/play/magazin... @rupertseidl.bsky.social @wernerrammer.bsky.social @christinadollinger.bsky.social

How expensive are 🪲💨🔥?! I can‘t believe it, but my 2nd PhD paper is finally published @natclimate.nature.com! Disturbances lower the economic value of Europes 🌲 by 29%... Climate change will increase it to up to 42%! (Now imagine a company looses 42% of its value…) doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02408-9

How big must it be? The SLOSS debate (large vs. many small reserves for biodiversity protection) is ongoing, and Anne Huber’s first (fantastic!) PhD paper sheds new light. Spoiler: many small reserves work well in Central European temperate forests 📝https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111403

We keep growing! Are you excited about remote sensing and mountain forests? Then consider applying to this PhD position, supported by the TUM Center for Forest Management in the Alps! More details at: portal.mytum.de/jobs/wissens...

GfÖ 2025 is over and it was a blast! Strong @edfm-tum.bsky.social representation + friends! I go home with some great ideas and insights 💡 - special thanks to the organizing team for the great food, communication and program #gfoe2025

Fantastic and insightful talk from Isabell Lanzrein from the chair of Forest and Agroforest Systems (TUM) at #gfoe2025 about beech neighborhood species mixture on drought susceptibility 🪾☀️ She dropped my favorite cartoon of the week 🌲💚 🌳

Extremly interesting paper by the fantastic @lucialayr.bsky.social , who disentangeled the future effects and contributions of climate change and distrubances on boreal forest features! Spoiler, it seems they have the potential to offset each other 🔥🪲↔️🌡️ 👉 doi.org/10.5194/bg-2...

We have a #Tansley review out today @newphyt.bsky.social led by Becky Banbury Morgan in which we put forward a new framework that aims to explain how and why edge effects on forest structure vary across ecosystems and through time 📜 doi.org/10.1111/nph....

Aspiration of the week: Doing good science 💻 xkcd.com/3101/

Important statement paper! We should see trees and forests for what they are: diverse ecosystems with a range of services they provide - not simply as carbon storage hubs and sinks.