We live in a time where machines are increasingly automating routine tasks, but also creative ones. Does generative AI have a role in science communication? One tool turned a published paper into a comic - a study I lead-authored from my postdoc work on EcoImpact in Switzerland @eawag.bsky.social

Researchers with access to field stations are in a very privileged position - it is imperative that they are used to keep their functions alive in the minds of administrators

Cool study of the impact of an introduced North American freshwater fish on crayfish in New Zealand.

Invasive species are widely recognised as a major threat to biodiversity—yet quantifying their true impact can be challenging without long-term data. Our recent research highlights just how significant these effects can be.

This fun online game is a useful educational tool for understanding more about the ecology of gammarid amphipods in streams: amphipodfeast.francoiskeck.fr

This study documents the novel use of UAVs for surveying populations of a wetland dragonfly with a high-resolution camera, along with characterising different aspects of the habitat using hyperspectral imaging

I was just checking the numbers for Marsden this year, and Standard Grant EOIs submitted to the Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour panel had the lowest referral rate (13.5%) of any grant type for the eight panels.

Anyone familiiar with SIA will know the troubling assumptions that need to be made about TDFs. This new preprint indicates that fractionation rates for nitrogen are temperature dependent, at least in lab populations of a cyprinid fish www.authorea.com/doi/full/10....

The role of response diversity in promoting community stability depends on disturbance regimes and is shaped by species interactions. Stability following pulse disturbances was highest when multiple interacting species uniformly exhibited strong resistance or fast recovery

Flying changes how metabolism scales with body mass –> NEW META-ANALYSIS of insects and spiders in Ecology Letters with @vojsavagjoni.bsky.social, H. Tan, A. Hirst and D. Atkinson onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

“Cutting off fundamental, curiosity-driven science is like eating the seed corn. We may have a little more to eat next winter but what will we plant so we and our children will have enough to get through the winters to come?” ― Carl Sagan

What a great location for a conference ##SFS2026 I'm feeling invigorated and energized after seeing some really cool talks over the week. You can't beat the scale of the USA as an incubator for research excellence

I’ve been thinking about starting a Substack, but beyond its obvious limitations as a platform for self-promotion and rambling thoughts, there are also ethical concerns to consider. In fact, I'm at the point where I'm actively boycotting it—and you should too www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

I'm not superstitious, but my encounter with this adult Pteronarcys californica at the #SFS2026 social last night felt momentous - a timely reminder of the spatial footprint for riverscapes - and the cool bugs that call freshwaters home (for some of the time, at least) freshwaterscience.bsky.social

Thinking of my super powers as a stream ecologist: the ability to discern the small insect sitting on my hotel room desk as an aquatic micro-caddisfly from the family Hydroptilidae. Close to the Spokane River so not surprising, but still trying to work out how it made its way in to the room.

Excited to be in Spokane, WA for the 2026 Society for Freshwater Science Annual Meeting. I'll be presenting on Tuesday at 1:45PM in the Land-Water Connections 2.0 session (Room 102).

🚨 Last seats available! Multivariate Data Analysis with R & vegan led by @gsimpson.bsky.social 📅 4–7 May (onine) www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...

Interesting BEF preprint: This approach seeks to distinguish the complementarity and selection effects on total community biomass, and complementarity and selection effects on effect trait expression - arguing that both contribute to ecosystem functioning

Good day for freshwater ecology with our BIOEB304 class at Lake Tikitapu @waikatouniversity.bsky.social

New paper suggests methodological improvements to enhance the use of the mitochondrial CO1 gene region for detecting freshwater invertebrates in eDNA

I was lucky enough to spend the last 10 days in Northland sampling streams like this for a Marsden-funded project on cross-ecosystem effects of biodiversity on system functioning.

Interesting "global" meta-analysis exploring what drives trophic niche breadth in freshwater fishes. Not a single study from Aotearoa New Zealand included.

If you are at the joint NZFSS/AFSS conference in Ōtautahi Christchurch are in interested in stream ecology I recommend you attend my students' talks on Wednesday.

We can map the world's existing forests with incredible accuracy now, but clearly we cannot (or will not) stop them from disappearing at rapid rates almost everywhere. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌎

Invasive species can disrupt food web energy dynamics by altering pelagic-benthic pathways. In this example, interactions between invasive species and nutriment enrichment influenced concentrations of LC-PUFAs in key consumers, indicating functional shifts in resource fluxes.

Impressed to see a whole tree snagged mid-channel below the Victoria Bridge in Hamilton. The Waikato River is running very high at the moment.

Concentrations of an omega-6 LC-PUFA in stream biofilms was greatly decreased in open, well-lit conditions when compared to a shaded treatment - suggesting that riparian shading can improve the nutritional quality of biofilms

Understanding the specificity of algal-consumer interactions in stream food webs may be crucial for better understanding how essential LC-PUFAs are acquired from dietary sources #fattyacids

Molecular analyses revealed that the microbiomes of hydropsychid caddisfly biostructures differ taxonomically and functionally from adjacent rock biofilms (~2 cm distant). They were enriched in microbial taxa associated with ecosystem functions including denitrification #ecosystemengineers

Interested in applying fatty acid biomarkers and functional traits to understand landscape drivers in stream-riparian food webs? Look no further than our recent paper published here: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

How does trophic connectivity between different ecosystems work at a landscape scale? We applied a novel conceptual framework with functional traits and fatty acid biomarkers to assess direct and indirect effects of landscape drivers on cross-ecosystem connectivity in stream-riparian #foodwebs

Warming of aquatic ecosystems disrupts aquatic–terrestrial linkages in the tropics - a natural experiment using geothermally-warmed streams showed how increased temperature reduced emerging adult insects, thus affecting terrestrial predators that rely on this prey subsidy #foodwebs

Interesting study considers how climate change might interact with two plant species to affect litter decomposition - could such responses cross ecosystem boundaries when decomposition happens in aquatic receiving environments?

Indirect ecological interactions are everywhere in nature, with species influencing another through a third species or the environment. Such interactions are rarely connected to rapid evolutionary change. Here, aphid-driven herbivory of duckweed drove adaptive evolutionary change in Daphnia.

Japanese researchers were able to use a ViT model to successfully achieve high accuracy in identifying mayfly families from images. This demonstrated the potential for machine learning and image analysis to automate the taxonomic identification of macroinvertebrates in freshwater biomonitoring.

Restoration ecology that considers biotic interactions is essential if goals include restoring species. Constructed wetlands complement adjacent streams by supplying emergent aquatic insect subsidies asynchronously, extending the foraging window for terrestrial consumers #foodweb #landscapediversity

Andrew Barnes @barnesecodiv.bsky.social will present our next seminar: "Deciphering the Multitrophic Consequences of Biodiversity Change Through an Energetic Lens" Join us online Thursday 26th June 1pm AEST! Sign up to our mailing list to receive the zoom link forms.gle/24Y557Cjeu6w...

Aquatic-terrestrial food webs are inextricably linked through reciprocal exchanges of subsidies. New synthesis explores their benefits as limiting resources that increase consumer fitness and ecosystem production, but also their dark side by vectoring contaminants, often in human-impacted watersheds

I was happy to be a contributing author for this new publication from the DecoDiv globally-coordinated experiment. Warming drives microbial decomposition of leaves in a way consistent with metabolic theory, and may contribute to positive climate feedbacks onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

The landscape theory of food web architecture (LTFWA) describes relationships between body size, trophic position, mobility, and energy channels that couple habitats, which in turn promotes stability. This study in Lake Michigan explores evidence for the LTFWA doi.org/10.1002/ecy.... Image: NASA

Today, Greenpeace #Italy released a report featuring our glacier projections for all Italian #glaciers. See the future of these icy giants with an interactive map 🌍🔍 Explore now: maps.greenpeace.org/maps/gpit/de... #WorldGlaciersDay #GlacierPreservation #GreenpeaceItaly

Urban gullies, with their associated seepages and streams are important ecosystems that support native biodiversity in Hamilton. Here two new caddisfly species are described from an urban stream that I have used in my Rewilding Rivers SCIEN301 capstone course www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Interesting post on decreasing male student participation in higher education. This phenomenon is noticeable in the biological sciences.

Interesting food web interaction across ecosystem boundaries: stream decapods feeding on inputs of terrestrial fruit in neotropical forest catchments

Climate change may be altering the distribution of flows in river networks - with greater flood disturbance in headwaters and more low flows in downstream basin outlets. This potentially affects erosion, sedimentation, and ecological communities

Global biogeochemical cycles are interconnected. Alterations to the carbon cycle are akin to inflation with too much money in supply. The same problem is happening with water - freshwater stocks are depleted as more enters the atmosphere, reinforcing climate forcing and driving intense rain events

Interested in freshwater food webs and keen to connect with like-minded researchers on Bluesky? Give me a shout-out and I will add you to the Freshwater Food Webs starter pack. go.bsky.app/R2WU99T

I have been inundated with peer review requests this year, and my patience with the system is growing weary

New study explores how stream pollution might shift the diet composition of riparian spiders by altering aquatic insect prey assemblages. This study includes cutting-edge applications of molecular methods to detect prey in spider guts and thus help describe cross-ecosystem food webs

Interested in freshwater food webs and keen to connect with like-minded researchers on Bluesky? Give me a shout-out and I will add you to the Freshwater Food Webs starter pack. go.bsky.app/R2WU99T