Scenarios for four Australian ecosystems in the year 2100 framed as state-and-transition diagrams. Some potentially important themes listed in following thread. connectsci.au/bt/article/7... @pieterarnold.bsky.social @julianschrader.bsky.social @ellapouton.bsky.social

really interesting analogy between learning in genomes and machine learning, with implications for both

Sad to hear of the passing of Robert Ricklefs - a giant of Ecology who simultaneously pushed forward big ideas at multiple biological levels yet took time for detailed natural history .. McGill does a nice job summarizing his impressive contributions 🌐🧪 dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/06/11/r...

Meet the Sunburst candy bolas spider! 🕷️🌈 So new it has no Latin name yet, just Cyrtarachninae, Araneidae. Spotted in Thailand. No web: it swings a sticky silk drop that mimics moth pheromones, luring males straight in 🌙✨. So rare, it may disappear before we name it! #Biodiful photo (c) N. Bay 🌍

🌱Do leaves and roots follow the same strategy? New research led by Yuzhi Zhu in Ecology Letters shows that leaf and fine root traits in subtropical forest plants are largely decoupled, with independent above- and below-ground resource strategies. 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New paper out in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social led by @westobymark.bsky.social and others The term ecosystem condition can imply an objective benchmark for what a “good” ecosystem state is. We argue for ecosystem valuation instead: it makes clear that assessing ecosystems involves value judgments.

1. Kevin Gross and I have a new paper out today PLOS Biology. We used economic models based around screening games and the market for unpaid labor to highlight a meltdown cycle threatening peer review.

A paper in Nature presents OpenScholar, an open-source language model that can outperform commercial large language models in performing accurate literature reviews. go.nature.com/3MozzFq #Academicsky 🧪

"Bond’s work leaves behind an inconvenient lesson for an era of climate urgency: that speed is not a substitute for understanding, and that good intentions, applied without care, can erase ancient worlds as efficiently as neglect." A beautiful tribute to William Bond. Forever missed by many.

Our new preprint out led by David Coleman, @westobymark.bsky.social and others: The most abundant plant species of Eastern Australia and our knowledge of their traits Just <1% of species make up 50% of the entire vegetation cover of Eastern Australia. doi.org/10.64898/202...

🏆We are pleased to announce that our Eminent Ecologist for 2025 is Angela Moles! ✨Angela has collected a few of her favourite Journal of Ecology papers together here: buff.ly/86uQ6v5

Paper out in Ecology Letters! We - incl. @westobymark.bsky.social @biogeokreft.bsky.social and others - show that traits are linked to species’ colonisation and extinction probabilities on #islands — with direct implications for species persistence and the Equilibrium Theory of Island #Biogeography

www.publish.csiro.au/bt/Fulltext/... Reflection in Aust J Bot "Trajectories of ecology past and future" #ecology

Wind and frost have surprisingly strong effects on global patterns in leaf cuticle thickness! Latitude, biome and taxonomy matter too. Other climate variables not so much. #trait research from international team including @lawrensack.bsky.social @westobymark.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1111/nph....

Excited to share our new paper led by Tsinghua Uni ECR Zhang Han: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/.... New model based on eco-evolutionary optimality explains observed seasonal and spatial trends in stem respiration, implies stem CO2 efflux down by >25% by 2100, reducing land carbon emissions.

Going live in 2 hours... @jpodwyer.bsky.social and @sarperotto.bsky.social interview Bob Holt for @smtpb.bsky.social youtu.be/q8hX3S0xMJc?...

New lab paper hot off the press in @globalchangebio.bsky.social by David Coleman and @westobymark.bsky.social Australia’s #islands may offer climate refuges, but ~40% of #plant populations—especially poorly dispersing species—will face hotter conditions beyond their current limits #ecology #nature

🌿The Value of Biodiversity Excited to share a new #EcolClip featuring world-renowned ecologist Prof. Peter Reich @umich.edu I found Peter's insights into the future of #biodiversity especially inspiring www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVLM... Please boost if you like it #ecology #science #nature #biology

📢 New publication 'Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire-prone heathland #shrubs?' by Lily Dun, Elizabeth Wenk, Daniel Falster, Mark Westoby and Ian Wright in Journal of Ecology 🧪 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

New paper out in @journalofecology.bsky.social led by Rudi Otto from Universidad de La Laguna (Tenerife) Primary succession and plant functional traits on an oceanic island Plant communities shift from fast-growing, wind-dispersed pioneers to slow-growing, animal-dispersed endemics as lava ages.

We're living in a landscape of novel ecosystems, emerging in every part of the world. The topic has been ably covered in this BBC article on "freakosystems" by Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Elizabeth Wenk & colleagues from @unswbees.bsky.social are making it easier for scientists to align databases with the current taxonomic classifications of their study species #R #APCalign #AustralianPlantCensus doi.org/10.1071/BT24...

New Research in Ecology Letters led by David Coleman: Island Plant Species Distributions Contracted at the Cooler Edge Compared to Mainland Why? We're not entirely sure — we'd love to hear additional hypotheses beyond the ones we proposed in the paper. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

News article about our recent paper in Nature on global impoverishment of natural vegetation by Conny Sattler (cosattler.com) and myself in @theconversation.com @aunz.theconversation.com theconversation.com/invisible-lo... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The next exciting instalment from @jradford-smith.bsky.social on how climate filters rainforest tree strategies in the Australian subtropics. Now available in early view at @ecography.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/ecog...

inspiring and useful #functional #ecology tea towel, with much thanks to @ianjwright.bsky.social, Sharyon O'Donnell and Nathan Hart

📣 Register for our first #webinar of 2025! @westobymark.bsky.social is Prof. Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University. One strand of his research has defined #ecological strategy variation across plant species by means of quantitative traits. 📝: uqz.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

"John Raven, FRS, FRSE: a truly great innovator in plant physiology, photosynthesis and much more" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Memorial Lecture Feb 26 2025 @ANU Fenner School. David Brand: The Evolution of Forestry into a Natural Capital Asset Class. fennerschool.anu.edu.au/news-events/...