📢 rphylopic 📦 1.6.0 is now on #CRAN! - resolve_phylopic() retries failing API calls 🔄 - geom_phylopic()/add_phylopic() work with ggplot2 4.0.0 🪛 - add_phylopic_tree() wraps add_phylopic() for base R trees 🪾 - get_phylopic() can get og source files from #PhyloPic 👤 rphylopic.palaeoverse.org #Rstats

Not this again...

“CSIRO has announced it will slash up to 350 jobs as the national science agency grapples with long-term financial challenges … with current funding failing to keep pace with the rising costs of running a modern science agency.” Not “challenges”. They’re choices. 😡

That's more than 1,100 jobs lost at the CSIRO over the last two years. "Combined, the staff association estimates that equates to cutting the agency’s size by a third." This is more cuts to the CSIRO than was attempted by the Abbott government. www.smh.com.au/national/csi...

Here is a link to the corresponding paper, which does not require the Utrecht University login: www.nature.com/articles/s43... Leny Montheil et al. (2025) @commsearth.nature.com, including @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social Please check out the quoted post for an overview of this new paper! 👇🏻 🧪 ⚒️ #PaleoSky

This is the reconstruction that comes with our new Nature Communications Earth & Environment paper on Caribbean biogeography. With Leny Montheil, Mélody Philippon, Franck Audemard, Lydian Boschman, Richard Wessels, Sylvie Leroy et al #UtrechtPaleogeographicModel www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Just gonna put this here for now www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... bsky.app/profile/jlst...

Hot off the press! From the PhD thesis of @lopezreyeska.bsky.social where we explored the connection between biogeographic processes and climatic niche dynamics in spiny lizards 👇

Very happy to finally see this out in @pnas.org. Great work (masterfully) led by my dear friend @gabrielmoulatlet.bsky.social on a classic question on range sizes, climatic niches and dominance for plants at the global scale! Thanks for the collab, Gabriel!

in "General laws of biodiversity: Climatic niches predict plant range size and ecological dominance globally", we provide key insights into species’ vulnerability to environmental change and the processes that structure biodiversity at global scales. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

Phylogeny of tinamous based on whole-genomes and fossils: academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... 🪶🧪 (📷Musher et al.)

Most major theories in ecology assume some sort of equilibrium, but only ~half of empirical tests acknowledge it & even fewer observed it in their system. Does this matter? How did the idea become so pervasive in ecology anyway? Find out in our new paper! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I keep seeing journalism described as an "ecosystem" and I guess that tracks because it's undergoing an extinction crisis caused by billionaires, too.

RIP 😢 I remember spending hours and hours on this site as an undergrad.

Our new @science.org paper is out! Cuckoos and hosts are locked in a coevolutionary arms race over egg mimicry. But how are these egg types inherited, and could this drive speciation? We sequenced hundreds of genomes to find out! doi.org/10.1126/scie... 🧵1/6

#PCM folks: What tools are out there for forward-in-time simulation under historical biogeography models (e.g., DEC) that include simulation of both range and lineage dynamics?

Out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social and led by @tillramm.bsky.social! We integrated population genomics, fossils, SDMs, and micro-CT scanning to understand how climate change has influenced extinctions and extant genetic diversity in the threatened Australian mountain dragon #ozherps #genomics

ARC says Discovery Projects outcomes will be tomorrow (Tuesday). Linkage Projects (2025, round 1) on Wed. Over past ~year, it's often been at about 11am (Canberra). My bot will pick up the change to RMS & post immediately. ARC should email outcomes to lead CIs, but might take an 1hr or so for DPs

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 🗓️30th October 2025, 15:00 UTC🗓️ Join us next week to hear from Dr Oskar Hagen, on “Mechanistic biodiversity modelling with gen3sis: population-based simulations across regional and global domains to deep and shallow time” 🌐 Register here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-...

am currently struggling to extract shape files for world's birds from birdlife .gdb file. anyone do this recently and know how to do this? any & all help appreciated

This is an INCREDIBLE advance in our understanding of coral diversification. 🪸🎉 Fantastic new work led by @claudiavaga.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨Our new package {galaxias} is released in R & Python today! 🚨 📦 galaxias makes it easy to standardise data to Darwin Core, the accepted format for sharing ecological data with infrastructures like @gbif.org and the Atlas of Living Australia galaxias.ala.org.au #rstats #python 🧪🌏🐟 A thread 🧵👇

Deep learning for mass extinction detection on fossilized phylogenies: power, limitations, and lessons for simulation-based phylodynamic inference https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.20.683352v1

An important paper - just out in @natureportfolio.nature.com documenting a decline in net C uptake by Australian rainforests. Eventually the same will occur in other rainforests - a reminder that we need to get to net zero ASAP. @biologyanu.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check out this amazing paper by @ignacioq.bsky.social et al. on the rise and fall of clades using a new fossilized birth-death model and inegrating phylogenetic and fossil occurence data. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share our new paper where we find that the rise, decline and fall of clades is not explained by the usual suspects (diversity-dependence, ecological opportunities) but rather by species' insidious loss of macroevolutionary fitness: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/3

Every ton of CO2 matters : @climatenerilie.bsky.social quantifies the climatic impacts of one large fossil fuel project and its implications for further human heat exposure or coral reef loss, and how committed emissions challenge climate pledges www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Taking my circus on tour!

New paper on deep-sea fish diversity out now in @sse-evolution.bsky.social, with @cmartinez.bsky.social and @sarahtfried.bsky.social academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

I do want to take a minute to share the backstory of our paper on the total solar eclipse that triggered dawn behavior in birds. This was SUCH a fun paper to work on, a major light in a lot of different tunnels over the past 18 months. doi.org/10.1126/scie... < ☀️ Let the light puns begin ☀️ > (1/x)

Happy to see this finally out! Diego is a brilliant student that took our grad course on Macroevolution during lockdown, and this eventually escalated to me becoming a co-author in his PhD chapter. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Very pleased to see our study that formally quantifies the society of zebra finches. They have different types of relationships, and these form tiers, but they do not form a multilevel society. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... This was a very nice collaboration with great colleagues.

A Systematic Investigation of Overfitting in Maximum Likelihood Phylogenetic Inference https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.07.680876v1

Everybody makes money out of academic authors except the authors...News. Wiley is the latest academic publisher to reach a multi-million deal to allow access to its content to AI developers, with no opt out, let alone payment, for the authors who created that content.

New preprint led by grad student, Yu Mo! We introduce new software to calculate evolutionary rates of quantitative characters in the presence of discordance 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Just published in @journal-evo.bsky.social: Different diets, different speciation rates in the most ecologically diverse family of mammals, the amazing Phyllostomidae 🦇 tinyurl.com/5xd3p3mz Para un pequeño resumen, ve las figuras 👇

Final Week to Register! AES 2025 | Brisbane | 1–3 Oct 🗓 Registration closes 29 Sept Don’t miss your chance to be part of three days of evolutionary science, talks & community. Secure your spot now! ausevo.com/registration/ #AES2025 #Evolution #AusSci #Conference

“Rich Grenyer, a biologist at the University of Oxford, said de-extinction is a “dangerous” distraction and that gene-edited animals are “at best a sort of simulation, rather like those unnerving animated AI portraits of dead relatives some… people create”.” www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

✊UNION WIN✊ The ANU has announced that there will be no forced redundancies. @nteuact.bsky.social members have fought tirelessly to save these jobs, showing every university staff member facing job cuts that change is possible. 📰Read here: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

ANU interim vice chancellor today announced no more forced redundancies under the Renew ANU program. Cuts are ongoing, but forced redundancies are off the table. It’s been a hard slog. Harms are ongoing. There’s still more work to do. I’m so proud of my colleagues, ANU community.

What is the threshold for sanctioning PM Netanyahu and his govt?! Signatories to the genocide convention like 🇦🇺 must take action in the face of genocide, including taking measures to stop it. The global community has to do more. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

Huge thanks to @palaeopercs.bsky.social for inviting and hosting me! If you missed my talk on Tuesday, you can now catch up via their YouTube channel 👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=x19X...

Professor Bell’s resignation is the culmination of months of scandal, plummeting staff and student morale, and a governance system that is completely broken. Let’s not forget that Chancellor Bishop’s leadership has also been fraught, and she too must be held accountable for the crisis at ANU.

We are incredibly proud of everyone who has stood up for the #ANU and its people. Their example will encourage university staff and students across the country. @nteunion.bsky.social www.9news.com.au/national/aus...

Human-driven extinction event not yet the "sixth mass extinction", but is very likely the largest extinction event of the last 66 million yrs. 🌏 🧪 Read about it in our new paper led by @jackhhatfield.bsky.social and Katie Davis @anthropocenebio.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

We need ComCare to make a similar intervention at ANU. The psychosocial harm ANU executive are inflicting upon ANU staff is completely unacceptable. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...