Always use the mic at a conference even if you’re loud. People who can’t hear you *can’t hear you * when you ask if you can hear them in the back. Some of us went to one too many hardcore shows in our youth without ear plugs and our hearing ain’t what it used to be 🥺 #SICB2026

You have probably heard that our mossy northern #peatlands are carbon-rich, but did you know they are also berry-rich? I'm exploring the truly scrumptious berry bounty provided by northern peatlands on Peatpedia, including taste tests! First up, #cranberries! open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

Stuart Brooks helped move peatlands from the policy margins to a climate and biodiversity priority. A geographer by training, he built restoration standards, aligned practice with policy at major trusts, and as founder of the IUCN UK Peatland Program shaped protections still guiding work today.

As a case led by nine First Nations challenging Ontario’s Bill 5 winds its way through the courts, two grassroots organizers from Attawapiskat want to bring in their perspectives on the Breathing Lands — beyond the Ring of Fire: thenarwhal.ca/bill-5-lawsu...

Constructive reviews are so important for improving a paper. Rushed reviews that skip over potential issues often result in poorer quality publications, despite the peer review process. Ive been in this situation as author, coauthor & reviewer, wondering whether reviewer 3 even read the paper!

Google suggests the Congo is the world's largest #peatland. This is wrong! For details of the world’s largest peatland complexes, & as a ref for anyone wanting to avoid error-ridden AI search tools, I have manually searched the available literature. See Peatpedia for the results: lnkd.in/gTi32rGX

Are you looking for a peaty Christmas gift🎁? Or do you simply appreciate the beauty of peatlands? #PeatSky Order our 2026 #PEATcalendar, featuring 12 stunning photos of peatland wildlife submitted by the peatland community: tiny.cc/z4tv001 Your purchase will support early career researchers #PeatECR

📢New on Peatpedia - introducing the wondrous wildlife of🌎bogs, fens, & swamps! Moose, caribou, bears, frogs, dragonflies, rattlensnakes (yes, rattlesnakes!), and further south, more snakes, & skinks. The biodiversity of global #peatlands is truly astounding. open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

This took me back! 📚 I remember photocopying the most relevant journal pages (reduced size, so it cost less! My poor eyes...) so I could go back to my college room to study. Because I didn't want to live in the library. And so I could have a decent cup of tea while reading ☕️ 📚📚📚 Research was slow...

Excited to share the first publication from my PhD work on swamps! We conducted a synoptic study of 12 swamps across southern Ontario looking at carbon pools and fluxes. doi.org/10.19189/001...

Peat friends! Our #EGU26 session "Peatland hydrology: From tropical to subarctic latitudes" 🌍🌿💧 is open for abstracts. We welcome studies on a broad range of hydrological processes in peatlands. Submission deadline is Thu 15 Jan, 13:00 CET. Full info here: www.egu26.eu/session/56151

Scientists work for free for the publishers. Then this happens: english.elpais.com/science-tech...

📢 Coming to you all a bit later than anticipated - its been a whirlwind of a week! Muskeg and Mines Part 2, focusing on this often asked question: Are there any policies that protect peatlands or at least minimise the impact of these developments on peatlands? open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

Tiny but mighty mosses are so often overlooked but they are the reason northern #peatlands store so much carbon and persist as long-term carbon sinks. Peatlands are resilient, but if we don't reduce industrial emissions, they may struggle. Find out more: open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi... #COP30

Getting started with Rushes, with Lynda Weekes Identifying rushes, grasses, and sedges The @bsbibotany.bsky.social's Botanical Skills Webinar takes place on Tuesday 11 November from 7pm. @daera-ni.gov.uk has provided funding for the series of free talks. www.tickettailor.com/events/botan...

The dark nights are closing in, thick mists linger, and ghastly ghouls may be hiding in the shadows... or in the swamps. Because in The Witcher and other fantasy books, TV, and film, the monsters are always lurking in the swamps and other #peatlands. open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

"There's a polar bear swimming towards us." 🐻‍❄️ Did you know you can find polar bears in the far north of Ontario? Living on the edge of one of the world's largest peatland complexes? More to come in a short series of new Peatpedia posts on Muskeg and Mines. open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

New on Peatpedia - an attempt to demystify #peatland carbon stores, sinks, and other gassy issues! open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

Wondering what to do this weekend? Why not get outside and explore a bog! I highlight a few 'boardwalk bogs' in Canada, the USA, and the UK in a new post on Peatpedia. Feel free to add your favourite boggy boardwalks in the comments on Substack or below! open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

📢 New paper on burned and thawing permafrost #peatlands in northern Alberta! Large Carbon Losses From Burned Permafrost Peatlands During Post‐Fire Succession - led by Chris Schulze - 2025 agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/... Really great research involving some difficult field work!

Peatlands in Canada - 5 key facts. These bogs, fens, permafrost peatlands & peat swamps are some of the most extensive boggy landscapes in the world. More to come! I've been working on peatlands in Canada for over 10 yrs - so many more facts & stories to share! open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

📢 New Peatpedia post! A brief intro to #peatland soils, peat fossils, and moss piglets. Moss piglets! Microscopic creatures wriggling in the moss. I got very distracted doing background research on them, so a future post will be dedicated entirely to moss piglets! open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

#ClimateWeekNYC is coming up! Then #COP30. We will hear more about the need for low-carbon technologies to reduce emissions and reach net-zero. But these technologies cannot come at the expense of carbon-rich #peatlands. I explain why in my new blog- Peatpedia! open.substack.com/pub/peatpedi...

QGIS or ArcGIS Pro? After using all ArcGIS forms for 20+ yrs, I recently had to switch to #QGIS for a few new #peatland projects and it works great! Its quick to produce maps (examples below) and more complex spatial analyses are all possible and some even seem to run a bit faster. #maps #gis

🚨📸 About 2 weeks left to send in your best #wildlife in a #peatland shot and publish in the 2026 edition of #PeatCalendar Email to: [email protected] Deadline: 30 September

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN. It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package. Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

New Study in ES&T! Permafrost peatlands accumulate mercury from distant sources, but thaw causes collapse into wetter bogs and fens. Lauren Thompson shows that these bogs, and especially fens, become hotspots for mercury methylation, and potential downstream transport. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

#WorldWaterWeek has been truly inspiring. We have taken water for granted for too long. The same applies to #peatlands - they are undervalued, despite their importance to us. Moving forward, we must be water-smart as well as climate-smart in our decision-making for peatlands in Canada and globally.

Looking forward to learning from and participating in important conversations during #WorldWaterWeek - happening now in Stockholm and online. Registration for online attendance is free! #peatlands #wetlands worldwaterweek.org

I've just declined attending an online peatlands workshop, hosted by a US institution, because they certainly don't need to know the details of my citizenship, my passport details, emergency contacts, work and CV details, just for me to join them via my laptop from my home in Canada. Ridiculous!

Another #ConservationJobs roundup, mostly in Canada. Please share — someone in your network will be job hunting. All job ads #ShowTheSalary, which is rapidly becoming the norm (not just a best practice). www.linkedin.com/posts/aerinj...

Happy #WorldBogDay! To celebrate here is a coloured pencil drawing of #Cloudberry, a plant that can cover the surface of bogs across the boreal, creating a sea of beautiful golden berries above the soft Sphagnum moss. #peatlands #muskeg #botanicalart #art #natureart

Wetlands across Canada are indeed great treasures for Canadians and globally. But the push to fast-track 'projects of national interest', incl. critical minerals, puts these important ecosystems at significant risk. A reminder to governments that protecting wetlands is also of national interest.

COP15 of the Ramsar Convention starts today. Here in Canada we have the privilege of being home to a quarter of the world's remaining wetlands. Let's not forget what a treasure they are. theconversation.com/canadian-wet...

Sphagnum mosses are fascinating from physiology, ecology, and climate perspectives. I'm especially proud of this @newphyt.bsky.social paper meant to inspire new research on ecoevolution and biodiversity. Check out the incredible cover art by Blanka Aguero! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Another peaceful moment on the kayak. I decided to put in at the marina tonight instead of my usual spot. It allows me to go up along these limestone cliffs. You can hear a winter wren calling in the background.

This #FungiFriday we’re spotlighting Mycenaceae! 🍄 Our fungarium is curating a donation from late mycologist E.E. Emmett—tiny but mighty Mycena mushrooms. Mycena, or bonnet mushrooms, are often small brown inconspicuous fungi, but with 600+ species, they play vital roles in ecosystems worldwide.

Springer-Nature launched a series of "Discover" journals that closely mimic MDPI titles -- sharing *identical* journal names, and likely similar business model. What is going on, and why researcher will - as always - fall for it? A 🧵 the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...

“Most people think Ontario is all forest,” he says, “but Omushkego land is so much more. It’s my home, my history, my people.” - Jeronimo Kataquapit The Hudson Bay Lowland is indeed so much more to so many people. canadiangeographic.ca/articles/ins... #peatlands #climatechange #biodiversity

A fantastic new mapping product for the world's inland waters, a critical driver for studying GHG emissions, biodiversity, and much more. Mapping the world's inland surface waters: an upgrade to the Global Lakes and Wetlands Database (GLWD v2) essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/...

To celebrate World Peatlands Day 2025, take a moment to watch this wonderful video highlighting the importance of #peatlands to people around the world. youtu.be/2Idw7uYlKVQ?... #wetlands #peatlandsoftheworld #VeniceAgreement theveniceagreement.net

Territorial behaviour in ecology and conservation damages careers and impedes progress in the field. 🌏🧪🌐

Climate isn’t the only crisis. Siloed thinking sells false hope while nature disappears. Ecosystem loss for renewables is still collapse—just rebranded. apple.news/A9nUYttBzSoe...

"This is particularly important in academia: we attribute burnout to other factors: “maybe I’m just tired this week”, or “it will get better once I get all these 457 things out of the way and I can clear my deck”. Well, I got news for you: *the deck is never cleared*."

I haven't posted in a while - been busy with a few projects, including this one for the Alberta Native Plant Council. Botanical drawings in pen, for colouring pages! This is 1 of 3. You can find these pages at ANPC events this summer 🌿

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🌲🌳🌐 New study reminds us that forests act globally as a #carbon sink Between 2001 and 2023, the world's #forests have absorbed 5.5 gigatonnes more #CO2 than they have emitted on average each year. 👉 Gibbs et al. dx.doi.org/10.5194/essd... 🧪

New paper alert! Zombie fires overwinter, going underground to smolder through winter before reemerging. Until recently, we knew these fires occurred but knew little of their ecological or carbon impacts. Along with my amazing coauthors, we set out to change this. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The forest biomass industry — cutting forests to make wood pellets to be burned in power plants — will continue booming through 2030, says a new report. Scientists warn that forest biomass burning is unsustainable and produces more CO2 emissions than coal per unit of energy generated.