Keller Kopf
@kellerfish.bsky.social
📤 2336
📥 1057
📝 83
Ecology - Conservation - Rivers - Fish and Fisheries Senior Lecturer Charles Darwin University
pinned post!
First post here. I’ll unpack our new paper
@science.org
highlighting the loss of old animals and calling for ‘longevity conservation’
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Loss of Earth’s old, wise, and large animals
Earth’s old animals are in decline. Despite this, emerging research is revealing the vital contributions of older individuals to cultural transmission, population dynamics, and ecosystem processes and...
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado2705
12 months ago
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Biodiversity Council
5 days ago
A new special collection, released in the journal Wildlife Research
@wildliferesearchj.bsky.social
, published by
@csiropublishing.bsky.social
, showcases some of the amazing Indigenous-led and cross-cultural wildlife research occurring in Australia 🧪 Watch the full interview in the link below.
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Nature Portfolio
6 days ago
The remarkably long lifespan of bowhead whales could be due to an increased ability to repair DNA mutations, according to research in Nature.
go.nature.com/4hzvDN7
🌏 🧪
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈
13 days ago
The not-so-little Murray cod that could: fish tracked swimming 900km along Australia’s biggest river system
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
🧪🦑🌎🐠
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The not-so-little Murray cod that could: fish tracked swimming 900km along Australia’s biggest river system
Fish named after Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus was most recently tracked at a section of the mid-Murray, near Belsar Island
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/27/murray-cod-tracked-swimming-australia-biggest-river-system
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Lauren Brent
17 days ago
the IUCN have passed the Longevity Conservation motion put forward to them by
@kellerfish.bsky.social
and
@pili-scotland.bsky.social
and based on the paper we wrote on the value of older individuals in animal societies.
www.cdu.edu.au/news/global-...
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Global body adopts policy to protect Earth’s old, wise and large animals | Charles Darwin University
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has recognised Charles Darwin University-led research into the Earth’s oldest animals with the adoption of the ‘Longevity Conservation’ global...
https://www.cdu.edu.au/news/global-body-adopts-policy-protect-earth%E2%80%99s-old-wise-large-animals
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Josie Glausiusz
19 days ago
The North Atlantic right whale, one of the rarest whales on the planet, now numbers an estimated 384 animals, up 8 whales from the previous year, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. Right whales were once hunted to the brink of extinction.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
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Scientists say North Atlantic right whale population slowly increasing
Once hunted to the brink of extinction, the most venerable of the leviathans now numbers 384, up eight from past year
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/21/right-whale-population-increasing?utm_term=68f85a463991a1de687fe33692ff2aa3&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email
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Professor Euan Ritchie
19 days ago
The Victorian government’s decisions do a great disservice to expert’s time and carefully considered advice, and most importantly, the health of the places and wildlife we love.
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Karl Jacoby
23 days ago
Proud papa moment: my son J published a letter in the
@nytimes.com
today (in print tomorrow) on the need to think our definitions of autism.
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Australian Society for Fish Biology
26 days ago
📑
#NewReview
by Boube et al. dives into the scientific literature around the Great Hammerhead Shark. Our understanding of its migratory behaviour and habitat use is changing. 👀
doi.org/10.1007/s111...
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Dr Christina N. Zdenek
27 days ago
Extinctions serve as important warning signs that something is very wrong in the environment. Will we finally heed these warnings? Our mental wellbeing and over half our economy depends on it.
theconversation.com/and-then-the...
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And then there were none: Australia’s only shrew declared extinct
Australia’s only known shrew has been declared extinct. Its loss emphasises the need for national protection of Australia’s rare and unique wildlife.
https://theconversation.com/and-then-there-were-none-australias-only-shrew-declared-extinct-265988
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Anthony Ricciardi
29 days ago
Attempted eradication of smallmouth bass promotes rapid evolution. Here's the study that is the focus of the Scientific American article:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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@scbeurope.bsky.social
@society4conbio.bsky.social
@science.org
@altfws.altgov.info
add a skeleton here at some point
29 days ago
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@biodiversityguy.bsky.social
@euanritchie.bsky.social
@ljnbrent.bsky.social
@pili-scotland.bsky.social
@chrisjolly.bsky.social
@charlesdarwinuni.bsky.social
@rarlinghausfish.bsky.social
@shoalorg.bsky.social
@sharkscience.bsky.social
@amfisheriessoc.bsky.social
@fishconserve.bsky.social
add a skeleton here at some point
29 days ago
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If you are a voting member of the IUCN - please consider supporting our motion (113) for Longevity Conservation at the Congress this week
@iucnshark.bsky.social
@aciucn.bsky.social
@iucn-bctf.bsky.social
@sscmarine.bsky.social
iucncongress2025.org/assembly/mot...
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MOTION 113
https://iucncongress2025.org/assembly/motions/motion/113
29 days ago
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Brian J. Enquist
30 days ago
The disproportionate impact of the
#megabiota
on biodiversity and ecosystem processes
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Dexter and Casper snoozing
about 1 month ago
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Little surprise saltwater crocodile swimming off local Darwin beach; I did let the surf lifeguards and swimmers know!
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about 1 month ago
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A BIG congratulations to Dr Tegan Dedman for completing her PhD
@charlesdarwinuni.bsky.social
. Effects of sea level rise on the tropical freshwater wetland communities
about 1 month ago
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Herbert Nickel
about 1 month ago
Bison inhibits tree growth in Great Plains. We should give wisent a better chance to do the same in German national parks.
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
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Native megafauna (Bison bison) act as a surprising inhibitor of cedar tree expansion in a Great Plains grassland
In the Central Great Plains of North America, fire suppression is causing transitions from grasslands to shrublands and woodlands. This woody encroachment alters plant community composition, decrease...
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.70108
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Daniel Bolnick
about 1 month ago
@sse-evolution.bsky.social
just announced the following: Call for Proposals: Research Synthesis Working Groups The Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) invites proposals for sponsored Research Synthesis Working Groups at the 2026 Evolution meeting (up to two in-person and one virtual). ...
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Frank Pennekamp
about 1 month ago
Does body size predict abundance the same way in all environments, as predicted by the Metabolic theory of Ecology? Our new study challenges this assumption. Read it here: 📄
doi.org/10.1111/ele....
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Biodiversity modulates the cross‐community scaling relationship in changing environments
Organismal abundance typically declines with increasing body size, with metabolic theory predicting a universal size–abundance slope of –0.75. Using protist microcosms across gradients of species ric...
https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70208
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Brian J. Enquist
about 1 month ago
Classic macroecological laws-long held as signatures of biological systems-also emerge in economic and geological systems. The real signal lies not in the static universal patterns, but in how those patterns shift with scale 🌐🧪
#scaling
#macroecology
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
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Separating Macroecological Pattern and Process: Comparing Ecological, Economic, and Geological Systems
Theories of biodiversity rest on several macroecological patterns describing the relationship between species abundance and diversity. A central problem is that all theories make similar predictions f...
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0112850
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Brian J. Enquist
about 2 months ago
Cool... a global focus on three core traits of ectotherms: metabolic rate, development time and fecundity. ShareTrait: Towards interoperable and reusable individual trait-based data in ectotherms
#OpenTraits
#FunctionalTraits
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
🧪🌐
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https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2435.70147
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William (Bill) Sutherland
3 months ago
The Society of Wildlife Art have a wonderful project at Massingham Heath rewilding project, Norfolk. Here Amie Haslam and Brin Edwards explain the project.
youtu.be/hiCQiSHuaG4?...
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The Power of Art in Conservation
YouTube video by Bill Sutherland's Conservation Concepts
https://youtu.be/hiCQiSHuaG4?si=4p33sb5Rsgeziefl
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Magdalena Skipper
3 months ago
This is fascinating - the brain fires up immune cells when sick people are nearby 🧪
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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The brain fires up immune cells when sick people are nearby
When people viewed virtual avatars with coughs or rashes, their brains triggered an immune response.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02363-7
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Jens-Christian Svenning
3 months ago
Why did some
#megafauna
survive? 🦣🦘🦌 Our new study shows
#extinction
risk was higher for larger, flat-footed, island species— and lower for those closely related to tropical African/Asian fauna, likely filtered by earlier human impacts 👣🍖 📄
doi.org/10.1111/geb....
#hominid
#hunting
#evolution
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Julian Hoffman
3 months ago
Like the old-growth coastal redwoods that host whole other ecosystems in their spires, these extraordinary Australian stick insects reveal not only the richness and mystery of mature forest canopies but how vital their protection is for countless forms of life.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
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Supersized stick insect discovered in high-altitude trees in Australia
The 40cm-long insect, named Acrophylla alta, weighs slightly less than a golf ball and may be the heaviest insect in Australia
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/31/big-stick-insect-acrophylla-alta-found-north-queensland-trees
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Journal of Applied Ecology
3 months ago
Albatrosses make distinct flight hops when following fishing vessels 🎣 In this blog post, Jonathan Rutter discusses a new behaviour-based method to detect previously hidden interactions between seabirds and fishing vessels 🛰️🌏🧪 👇
appliedecologistsblog.com/2025/07/31/a...
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Rachel A.S. Forbes
3 months ago
There's so much life in the deep ocean, and there's still so much to discover!
#deepocean
#marinescience
🧪
www.bbc.com/news/article...
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'Communities' of strange, extreme life seen for first time in deep ocean
A Chinese-led research team captures pictures of life at depths of more than 9km in the northwest Pacific Ocean.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3wnqe5j99do
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Keller Kopf
Journal of Applied Ecology
3 months ago
To fill or not to fill: Comparing imputation methods for improved riverine long-term biodiversity monitoring 💭🌎 Suggests gap filling in biodiversity data can distort trends as more missing years mean easier fits but higher uncertainty 📊🧪 🔗
doi.org/10.1111/1365...
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1500 km2 of tropical savanna dotted with crystal clear water holes. Camping off the beaten track in Litchfield National Park is pretty special
4 months ago
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Prosanta Chakrabarty
4 months ago
An ecological trait matrix of Neotropical freshwater fishes
@gymnotus.bsky.social
et al. 2025 Scientific Data
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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An ecological trait matrix of Neotropical freshwater fishes - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - An ecological trait matrix of Neotropical freshwater fishes
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-025-04674-w
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Prosanta Chakrabarty
5 months ago
Novel complete mitochondrial genomes of eight riverine Lamprologus species (Actinopterygii, Cichlidae) suggest in-situ speciation of the blind cichlid L. lethops in the lower Congo River Jimenez et al. 2025
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Brian J. Enquist
5 months ago
Please pass along - postdoc position! with our working group on
#FunctionalTraits
and rarity. This is part of the FREE (Functional Rarity in Ecology and Evolution) working group led by Cyrille Violle in Montpellier France 🧪🌐🌾
emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...
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Portail Emploi CNRS - Offre d'emploi - Offre de post-doctorat en écologie (H/F)
https://emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/UMR5175-CYRVIO-009/Default.aspx
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Miguel Clavero
5 months ago
Amazing paper by He Zang and colleagues showing the (truly!) long-term decline of tigers in Eastern Asia Chinese difangzhi, and other historical documents, are used to describe range loss since the 16th century with an increadible spatial precision
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
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Keller Kopf
Save Our Seas Foundation
5 months ago
Silky sharks - sleek oceanic predators that were once one of the most abundant shark species in our oceans - are now considered vulnerable on the IUCN Red List due to their decreasing population. They are threatened by overfishing, and are the second most commonly caught shark in global fisheries.
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Happy to see our new paper published exploring size-based trophic dynamics in Australia’s largest river system
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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Intraspecific body size determines isotopic trophic structure of a large river fish community
The body size of individuals within species plays an important role in determining trophic structure, yet many ecological models and tests of theory assign species-level values to define trophic posi....
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.70069
5 months ago
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Brian J. Enquist
6 months ago
Simple, Universal Rules Predict Trophic Interaction Strengths
#scaling
#allometry
#bodysize
🧪🌐https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ele.70126?campaign=woletoc
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Simple, Universal Rules Predict Trophic Interaction Strengths
Two simple, universal rules derived from energetic arguments predict the parameters of predator functional responses that underlie the strengths of trophic interactions. Furthermore, theory developed...
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ele.70126?campaign=woletoc
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Keller Kopf
Prosanta Chakrabarty
6 months ago
Repeated and widespread evolution of biofluorescence in marine fishes Carr et al. 2025 Nature Comm. 459 known biofluorescent teleosts (the majority are associated with coral reefs); estimate biofluorescence evolved multiple times but first ~112 mya
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Repeated and widespread evolution of biofluorescence in marine fishes - Nature Communications
Biofluorescence is widespread in fishes. Here, the authors compile data on biofluorescence presence across teleost fishes and demonstrate that it may have originally evolved in eels 112 million years ...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59843-7
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Chris Stringer
6 months ago
Adaptations to marine environments and the evolution of slow-paced life histories in endotherms
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Adaptations to marine environments and the evolution of slow-paced life histories in endotherms - Nature Communications
The evolution of a slow life history may be due to reduced extrinsic mortality and allometric effects. Here, the authors suggest that adaptations endotherms needed to return to marine life are associa...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59273-5
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John Turnbull PhD
6 months ago
Our latest paper highlights changes in the marine community at Shiprock in Sydney over half a century.
#sydney_science
#SAEF_ARC
#marineexplorer
🧪🦑 Open access:
doi.org/10.1071/MF24...
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Biodiversity Council
6 months ago
Floodplain wetlands in Barmah Forest are bouncing back after the removal of more than 700 feral horses between 2020 and 2024 by Parks Victoria.
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Mongabay
6 months ago
“Until we came along, there was no voice for those saltwater anglers who cared about conservation.” Though anglers aren’t generally thought of as environmentalists, many people who fish are conservation minded, whether because it’s an outdoor pursuit, or because they wish to ensure future harvests.
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Angling for answers, this saltwater fishing group boosts research for better conservation
Saltwater fishing is both big business and a pastime in the U.S., with millions of Americans working in the industry – from commercial trawlers to professional fishing guides and gear manufacturers –…
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/angling-for-answers-this-saltwater-fishing-group-boosts-research-for-better-conservation/
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Julie Talbot
6 months ago
Wonderful cover, and amazing research by Zhang et al. - they used classic Chinese poetry that mentions the Yangtze finless porpoise (724 poems in total!) to estimate the range contraction of the species over the last 1400 years. Such a creative approach to generate truly novel data!
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UN Environment Programme
6 months ago
According to the
@ipcc.bsky.social
, marine heat waves have doubled in frequency and have become longer-lasting, more intense, and more extensive since the 1980s.Urgent
#ClimateAction
is needed to
#SaveOurOcean
and ensure a sustainable future for all.
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Keller Kopf
New Scientist
6 months ago
Greenland sharks, the longest-lived vertebrates in the world, show no signs of physical deterioration in their retinas even after living for hundreds of years.
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How Greenland sharks live for hundreds of years without going blind
Greenland sharks show no signs of retinal degeneration despite living for up to 400 years, and scientists have identified genetic adaptations that may explain how
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2478628-how-greenland-sharks-live-for-hundreds-of-years-without-going-blind/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=SOC&utm_source=Bluesky#Echobox=1746356065
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Functional Ecology
7 months ago
📰Published📰 Temperature influences how quickly aquatic animals adjust their physiology to a change in salinity 🐟🦀
buff.ly/RyRgPHG
🧪🌍
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Temperature influences how quickly aquatic animals adjust their physiology to a change in salinity
Sigurd Einum, Tim Burton This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology article which can be found here. Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of organisms to adjust their traits in respon…
https://buff.ly/RyRgPHG
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Alex Slavenko
7 months ago
A recent paper claims, opposed to what conservation science has known for decades, that there is no evidence that foxes and cats were a major driver of Australia's mammal extinctions. Turns out there are quite a few issues here. Strap in for a looong thread 🧪
academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...
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Review of evidence that foxes and cats cause extinctions of Australia's endemic mammals
Abstract. Over half of Australia's threatened and extinct endemic mammal species have been attributed to introduced red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and cats (Fel
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biaf046/8109923
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Incredibly rare leucistic sailfish!!
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7 months ago
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Important new review synthesising impacts of river development on fisheries
rdcu.be/ehZzy
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Impacts of water resource development on tropical flow-dependent fisheries: a case study of northern Australia
https://rdcu.be/ehZzy
7 months ago
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Jack A Brand
7 months ago
Super happy to see our new article on how pharmaceutical pollution can influence salmon migration out in
@science.org
! This was a huge effort by a great team of researchers over the last few years! You can read the paper here:
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
!
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