Pygmy Cormorant had a similar SE Europe distribution, range shift west has resulted in breeding in France in 2024. Does Dalmatian Pelican show the same trend? marcduquet.com/wp-content/u...

Proposal to establish a population of Dalmatian Pelicans in the Netherlands and Flanders. Is establishing a new population a good conservation proposal? Various people have opinions, some reading to inform forming a view. arkrewilding.nl/sites/defaul...

Worth reading, E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology, 50 years later.

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.

🚨 Key takeaway: A single fire can limit reproduction and seed quality for years, highlighting the importance of longer fire-free intervals to allow canopy recovery and healthy seed production. (9/9) 👉 doi.org/qmgq #PlantEcology #FireEcology #Cerrado #SeedBiology #SavannaEcosystems #PlantScience

My new article just published, "A Landscape of the Anthropocene: An Overview of Agricultural Terracing in Malta". doi.org/10.1080/1466...

Very interesting, also enjoyable to watch video.

Very interesting article on malting, wild cereals and prehistory. Also article on Butser experimental archeology giving estimates of prehistoric timber and thatch resource use.

Natural England after consultation did not allow falconers to take Peregrines from the wild to breed in captivity. It was claimed by falconers that they aimed to maintain a British captive breeding stock. A lucrative export market, potentially legal trade masking criminality?

How much do you like milk? Maybe not as much as prehistoric people in Ireland! From the Neolithic to medieval periods, cattle dominated the economy #MilkDay 🐄 Isotope analysis revealed how cows became central to social status in Irish communities. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

Wildfowl...driving in the 16th Century - amazing historical #wildlife #social #ecology source highlighted by @amiesphilip.bsky.social - fascinating beginning of wildlife legal protections and objections to them - 155 dozen moulting Mallards harvested in one Fenland site link in comments

Happy to share another paper from the loess tablelands of the Great Plains, on organic C in buried soils and how it becomes susceptible to decomposition. We sampled the Brady Soil along transects of decreasing depth of burial and increasing erosional exposure. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

So many results covering so many topics, but the original question of the impact of conifers on catchment produced fascination data on how that impact changes with tree age. (impact a mix of tree canopy evaporation and tree transpiration). hess.copernicus.org/articles/11/...

Superb work to make accessible the data from this long-term experiment. What impact do conifer plantations have on a water catchment www.ceh.ac.uk/sites/defaul...

Sudyka et al. Avian extra‐pair paternity in the last European primeval forest besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #ornithology

Ecological meta-analyses often inherit medical assumptions. High heterogeneity, small sample sizes, etc. break those assumptions. In the first post of a new series, I show why a “significant pooled effect” can be statistically correct but practically unhelpful. drmattg.github.io/Uncertain_Ec...

A open access link to C.P. Gleed-Owen, Subfossil records of Rana cf. lessonae, Rana arvalis and Rana cf. dalmatina from Middle Saxon (c. 600-950 AD) deposits in eastern England: evidence for native status brill.com/view/journal...

Very good news for #rewilding🪶 The bearded #vulture is nesting again in the Pyrenees and elsewhere. Thanks to #reintroduction (18 this year) and the work carried out with mountain communities, this “bone-breaker” is clearly making a comeback. 📷 © G&T Nicaise

Invasive species, other people charismatic wildlife, do nothing or even worse carry out further translocations as with Muntjac when the population booms the ability to eradicate is reduced, I guess parakeets join Grey Squirrel and other species as now established due to inaction or more truthfully

To show some good progress on the Lobaria pulmonaria translocations: this instance in Naddle Forest Haweswater was done in March 2021. The photos show it after 1.5 years and 4.5 years, with mesh removed. It's attached and grown with upturning outer lobes. #LichenGBI @britishlichensociety.org.uk

Moor Frog (Rana arvalis), Agile Frog (Rana dalmatina) have support as British natives, Tree Frog (Hyla arborea) has two historic mentions which are ambiguous. A thread with links to evidence and some comments. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Pinax rerum naturalium Britannicarum, 1667, author Dr. Christopher Merrett, lists the 'species' of dogs found in Britain as part of his mammal list then lists amphibians, next section birds. Ranunculus viridis listed, the Tree Frog.

An interesting film. youtu.be/6oNseREEwc0?...

Poronia punctata #Poroniapunctata #Poronia #PunktiertePorenscheibe #Grotespeldenprikzwam #mushroom #mushrooms #fungus #fungi #pilz #pilze #champignons #champignon #nature #natur #dungpilz #dungfungi #FungiFriends

Looking for a long epic during the holiday, the capabilities humans have is extraordinary, what epic memory. A recital apparently taking 6 months. www.silkroadfoundation.org/folklore/man...

A good example of how people should deal with criticism of their work. the3dlab.org/2025/12/22/d...

I grew up seeing peat extraction for garden compost in Somerset, extraction has still not been banned, this is absurd, ending all extraction and banning maize bio-energy crops on peat are obvious steps to take right now.

It is akin to mining, usage to extinction of a renewable resource, with approximately 40% of UK grown vegetables produced on lowland peat this is not such an easy thing to change, but why are bioenergy crops grown on peat?

Ecotypes: stable attractors or interrupted continuous phenotypic gradients? 🤔 www.cell.com/trends/ecolo... 🧪 #EvoBio #Paleobio

Coexistence with large carnivores is not a fixed end point — it is an ongoing, adaptive process that requires ecological, social and governance dimensions to align. Below a new #LCIE perspective paper on coexistence with #LargeCarnivores, developed for the European Commission. 🦊 1/4

Pannonian sand grasslands persist, but their specialists fade. Species adapted to grazing and dry, nutrient-poor soils decline, while generalists and nutrient-demanding species increase, driven by succession, eutrophication and abandoned management. preslia.cz/doi/preslia.2025.613.html

Healthy soil, sounds good, we all like health. So what does it mean? Anything somebody wants it to mean, it is meaningless unless we define it, or should we just not use it as a term, my personal choice as it is vapid.

Excellent update from @guyshrubsole.bsky.social on state of play for Landscape Recovery part of ELMS. Also, familiar tune on data availability - for a small country we really are rubbish at this. whoownsengland.org/2025/12/10/m...

🏺 Detailed preprint on the genetics of early farming (TRB-Funnelbeaker associated) and persistent hunter-fisher-gatherer (Pitted Ware-associated) communities on Gotland. Discusses patterns of genetic relatives in both groups, admixture between the groups... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

As a West Country liberal I do not understand Tim Farron, in many ways, his reaction to Sea Eagles illustrates an aspect, his objection to a feasible reintroduction project cumbriacrack.com/2025/11/06/m...

A huge industry of people exist who will lobby to channel biodiversity restoration funds into ineffective projects which will increase their own income, not just landowners, consultants and NGOs also, business may prefer the lack of real challenge, weak standards, lack of long-term delivery.

Drawdown species at Wilstone Reservoir. OK, so we know about the Norfolk Bladder-moss (Physcomitrium eurystomum), Riccia cavernosa, Mudwort (Limosella aquatica)--- but what's the green filamentous stuff? It's the largest constituent of mud-pioneer species. It physically competes with the others.

7/ However, it's clear that Tim Farron MP's claims about Landscape Recovery are wrong The projects involve a very broad range of different landowners, large & small - yes, big estates like the Duchy & Lowther, but also loads of small & medium-scale farmers like in the Breckland Farmer Cluster:

Good work, we should get series about freedom of information, land registry should be open, and no more hiding behind companies in tax havens.

NEW: Mapping England's Landscape Recovery projects The Government refused to release maps of these groundbreaking projects to restore nature So I had a go at mapping them myself 1/ whoownsengland.org/2025/12/10/m...

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 early evidence for fire making. Cool. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

'Specialist' species loss, perhaps better framed as species with certain traits which seem specialised in current environmental conditions in Europe. Combined with climate change distribution change. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It's possible to get quality timber from oak in only a century. On the other hand, if you're facing a timber shortage in the next 30 years, planting oak isn't going to fix it. 🌲🌳 www.futuretrees.org/product/oak-...

I've just read a post labelling the Dunnock as the ultimate skulker, must piss Cetti's and Grasshopper Warblers off who have earned that accolade, as have some rails.

One more thought on this program: I'm sure interesting science could result. But the most promising way to restore soils and ecosystems and store carbon will still be to use less land for crop production. Such as all the land used for corn that goes into ethanol. www.earthroverprogram.org

Why do we observe some plant #phenotypes but not others? This study explores the multivariate #PhenotypicSpace of a widely distributed #plant species to reveal how interplays between population history & natural selection shape phenotypic diversity in #Arabidopsis @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/43Z8IWi

The perfect Christmas gift for the stats-nerd in your life. www.ecoexplore.co.uk/products/p/d...

The perfect Christmas gift for the seabird-nerd in your life. www.awesomebooks.com/book/9781472...