🐦 Update on the “To feed or not to feed wild birds” project, which investigates the impact of bird feeding on nestling development and welfare. We’re especially excited as the first tit eggs were found today (30 March)! 🥚✨

🍎Did you Know? Apples depend on honeybees, wildbees and bumblebees for pollination🍏

🐦🏙️ New paper! Beyond “urban dullness”: across 8 urban–rural gradients (Poland), great & blue tits show species- & trait-specific colour shifts. Carotenoid & structural colours respond differently, while melanin traits remain stable www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧀🌿🧬New project cureCHEESES (DaFNE/BMLUK) with VetMedUni & HBLFA Tirol tackles cracking, eye formation & aroma defects in Austrian mountain cheese. Daniela Sint contributes by leading the plant DNA detection module to link cow diet with cheese properties. Exciting collaboration!

New paper on global change impacts on insects, out in GEB🦋🌍 Climate change and urbanisation act synergistically: butterfly declines are stronger under warming in urban environments. Species traits help explain heterogeneous responses. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @ylndmc.bsky.social

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Our project on bird feeding & reproduction is underway! Blue tits, great tits, and even some sparrows are already exploring the nestboxes. We will soon find out if feeding makes gardens more attractive as breeding sites🐣 — exciting insights ahead!

Congrats to Jana Robertson on receiving the Haus des Meeres stipend for her MSc thesis! She’s using eDNA sampling to improve the amphibian species catalogue in Costa Rica — exciting conservation research ahead! 🐸🧬

🐝🌾 Welcome Georg Teischinger to our group! His PhD will use eDNA to study insect networks in Austrian farmland, aiming to design better flowering strips, support wild bees, manage pests, and boost sustainable agriculture while protecting local biodiversity.

📢 Upcoming #EcologySeminar! Dr. Alina Twerski will give a talk about grasslands’ multifunctionality and it's restoration 🌾 📅 Wed 4. Feb at 10:15 AM 📩 DM for webinar link @hsanhalt.bsky.social @agrarunigoe.bsky.social @uni-goettingen.de

🍯🌼 New project funded! A joint initiative on honey DNA pollen analytics brings together the UIBK, the Tyrolean Beekeepers’ Association & Sinsoma, supported by the Land Tirol Innovation Programme. Congrats to Daniela Sint on leading this exciting science–practice collaboration!

🐋New paper! Integrating eDNA sampling into whale-watching tours boosts awareness & willingness to support marine conservation. Survey across Italy, Azores & Iceland shows citizen science + eDNA is a scalable, cost-effective way to engage the public in biodiversity protection. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

🧬 New year, new job! 🧬 I have started a position as Group Leader at #WasserCluster #Lunz (Austria). Stay tuned for job openings at all levels in the TRIDENT group @trident-wcl.bsky.social and collaboration opportunities in upcoming national and international #eDNA Projects.

Happy to welcome Marina Sperling as a new Master’s student! She’ll study how bird feeding affects pathogen prevalence in great & blue tits, opening our work on disease transmission linked to feeding 🐦🦠 www.uibk.ac.at/de/zoology/f...

🌆🐦 New paper! DNA metabarcoding of 370 tit droppings across Innsbruck urban mosaic shows urbanisation drives habitat-linked diet shifts shaped by vegetation & feeders, likely underlying urban–rural differences in reproduction and informing bird-friendly city design. doi.org/10.1016/j.la...

A big farewell to @bettinathal.bsky.social as she leaves our group to start her own Applied Biodiversity Research & Molecular Ecology team at WasserCluster Lunz (@trident-wcl.bsky.social)! 🚀Congrats Bettina — we will miss you, but we can’t wait to follow the great science coming from your team! 🧬🐟

The joint meeting of NSO and GFÖ, September 2026, Odense, Denmark (for which I'm leading the science programming group) is now open for workshop and thematic session proposals! Please share. Details here: nordicsocietyoikos.glueup.com/event/nordic...

📢 Upcoming #EcologySeminar! Kyra Zembold will share novel insights from #ProjectKOOPERATIV on how landscape diversity + flower fields togehter effect natural pest control at the landscape scale. 📅 Wed 10.Dec. at 10:15 AM 📩 DM for webinar link @agrarunigoe.bsky.social

🌡️ New publication alert! 🐠🌿 Herbivorous reef fish kept feeding during marine heatwaves—but still lost body mass due to a mismatch between energy intake and demand. As oceans warm, their ability to control invasive algae may be under threat. 🔗 dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... #ClimateChange #CoralReefs

📃 New paper out! Our high-frequency sampling in barley fields shows food webs shift rapidly, with connectance, community makeup & predator–prey links changing over weeks and between years. Snapshot sampling can misjudge ecosystem functioning. 🕷️🐞🌾 rdcu.be/eSI9G

📃Call for Papers! Scientific Reports: "Burden of air pollution on biodiversity & habitat loss". Submit by 1 Jul 2026. We welcome research on direct & indirect effects of NOx, O₃, PM on individuals, populations, communities & species interactions 😶‍🌫️🐞🌿 Mitigation studies also welcome!

Antonia from our eRNAmaris project visited Le Croisic, France, to collect water samples with our partners at Ifremer 🌊! Sampling over time will reveal how fish eRNA degrades 🐠🧬. Big thanks to the Océarium for making this possible!

Sadly, we have seen a big increase in avian flu cases in the UK - particularly in waterfowl Whilst the risk to the public remains assessed as very low, Government advice is not to touch any visibly sick or dead birds, and to keep pets away Read on for ways to help: 📷Ben Andrew

New book chapter in Advances in Organic Farming! 🌱 Philippe Belliard examines the challenges and solutions of agroecological pest management in organic farming, emphasizing integrated pest management approaches for controlling arthropod pests in crop production. doi.org/10.1079/9781...

🎉 Exciting news! Our project Frog in the Waterdrop led by Corinna Wallinger received the Peter Petrich Award for Sustainability from Biotop, along with €1000 to support our work on amphibian biodiversity and pathogens. A big thanks to everyone involved! 🐸💧

Developing eDNA approaches to measure biodiversity is a key endeavour in our group! 🌿🧬 Join us tomorrow (Nov 6, 9–11 am, in German) on Zoom to discover three exciting projects on amphibians, forest wildlife & pollinators with C. Wallinger, M. Traugott & S. Gurten : haup-ac-at.zoom.us/j/88638709922

New funded project! 🎉 Led by Lauren Rodriguez (PI) and @bettinathal.bsky.social (Advisor), this study will push the boundaries of eDNA research by testing cutting-edge genomic tools to identify individual sperm whales from environmental samples — a major step for non-invasive marine monitoring! 🐋

🚨Turning air quality networks into a global #biodiversity monitoring system? Air pollution filters were repurposed for #airborne #eDNA, enabling detection of #vertebrates, #invertebrates, #plants & #fungi at a national scale.🧬🌐🧪 📄Check out our new paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌿 #PostDoc Alert! PhD in #EnvironmentalSciences? Proficient in #bioinformatic, #EcologicalModelling and good knowledge of trait-based #ecology🦋? Our #ConservationBiology group offers a PostDoc position in biotic and trophic interactions🐜: apply.refline.ch/273855/1769/... #UrbanEcology #ScienceJobs

Congratulations to Marina Sperling on her bachelor’s thesis featured in the Uni Innsbruck Newsroom! Marina studied bird diversity across five UIBK campuses, showing how green spaces attract rare species like hawfinches, while buildings offer nesting sites for swifts. www.uibk.ac.at/de/newsroom/...

🌊 New paper out! Our latest study in Environmental DNA shows how fish daily vertical migrations affect eDNA in the ocean. 🐟 For species like European hake, seafloor eDNA signals vary between morning and evening, showing that behavior must be considered in eDNA monitoring. 👉 doi.org/10.1002/edn3...

Feeding birds connects us to nature 🐦 but it may also expose them to pathogens or stress. With our new FWF-funded project "Pathogens: From Feeders to Flocks", we will uncover how bird feeding shapes pathogen exposure and health in wild birds. With Daniela Sint and Tina Weedman in Innsbruck!

We are offering a 2-year postdoctoral position to join the @valor-project.eu Horizon EU project: Values and dependence of society on pollinators bartomeuslab.com/joining-the-...

👏 Wishing a fond farewell to Thomas Curran! Thomas has developed molecular approaches to assess arthropod & plant diversity in grasslands from eDNA as part of the GeMonA+ project. 🦗🌱 Best of luck in your new lecturer position at South East Technological University, Waterford!

🎉 Congratulations to Rebecca Niklas on completing her master’s thesis! Rebecca used eDNA samples to assess marine biodiversity and whale diet in the Azores, as part of the @ewhale-dna.bsky.social project🐋🌊 Fantastic work bridging cutting-edge molecular tools with marine ecology!

Excited to kick off my project “To Feed or Not to Feed Wild Birds”, funded by @wildanimalinitv.bsky.social We’re setting up nestboxes and feeders in 40 private gardens in Innsbruck to study how bird feeding affects nestling welfare. Stay tuned to see if our backyard treats really help birds!