NSF unexpectedly changed (at the last minute) who is eligible to apply for the Grad Research Fellowship, dropping 2nd year students. We started a petition to reverse this unfair change, Sign here: laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/ and please spread the word!!!!

One of the most important and magical shorebird stopover sites in the country is the Bolivar Flats Bird Sanctuary in Texas. It is currently under threat from development and we are in a race to save it. houstonaudubon.org/conservation...

The Dept. of BioSciences at #RiceUniversity, in Houston, Texas, invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position in Evolutionary Biology, with a preferred focus on organismal responses to environmental change. Please RT! Apply: apply.interfolio.com/173889

Please consider applying to our open faculty position call that includes Ecology! apply.interfolio.com/172075

Awesome faculty position alert! Tenure-track assistant professor position in Evolutionary Biology, with a focus on organismal responses to environmental change. Please help spread the word! apply.interfolio.com/173889

How variable are temperature effects on species interactions within a local community? Find out in our new paper led by @zoeyneale.bsky.social "Thermal responses of feeding rates differ across co‐occurring predator species" esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Nearly all PhDs take 5 years--with finishing in 4 a rare outcome. This is deliberately designed to eliminate the international powerhouse that is US postgraduate training.

Thrilled to announce that next year I will be joining @DukeBiology as an assistant professor! I am excited to recruit postdocs and PhD students to start as early as Fall 2026. If you are interested in plant community dynamics, global change, and/or wildfire, please see details below.

At #ESA2025? Check out my student Xinyi Yan's new theoretical work on plant-soil feedbacks and species coexistence! "Microbial competition for plant resources leads to multi-stability in plant coexistence outcomes" Wednesday at 2:45 in BCC 342 (CO2 112)

And I’ll present this work at @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social #ESA2025 on Tuesday, 4:30pm! Come to COS 065. Spoiler alert: it’s all about the geese!

First postdoc paper just dropped! Using 50 years of Breeding Bird Survey data, we found that the unexpected functional shifts of bird communities in North America do not track species-level expectations, and these unexpected shifts can be explained by just 5% of “hyper-dominant” species.

Our new study shows how animal biodiversity loss is a climate problem: tropical forests recover far less carbon where seed dispersers have declined. We’re not just losing forests – we’re losing their ability to regrow. Reversing that trend could align biodiversity recovery with climate solutions.🧵

Happy to share a new preprint! W/ @zachgold.bsky.social, Haylee Oyler, Jonathan Levine and @nathanjbkraft.bsky.social. We use a spatially explicit experimental design to ask: do higher-order interactions structure the dynamics of annual plant communities? Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵

How may theoretical ecology & evolutionary theory push microbiology forward? At Environmental Microbiology, I am commissioning a series of Perspectives exploring that question. Excited to share them in the 🧵 below The series is open, so do get in touch if you'd like to propose a new contribution!

New paper w/ Jonathan Levine and @exp-evoeco.bsky.social! We induced plastic responses in annual plants through early-life competition. These responses tended to make subsequent species interactions stronger and coexistence less likely. Link: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

I am where I am now because of OPT. That was my status all throughout my postdoc. It is basically the only way international students are able to transition to employment and contribute their US-trained skills in the United States.

Excited to share our paper in @pnas.org with Aldo Compagnoni and Tom Miller ! Climate change may push dioecious plants toward female-biased sex ratios which will impair seed production. Ignoring this feedback underestimates range shifts. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

what is it REALLY like to be a #speciesonthemove? @mwtingley.bsky.social, @mhcneateclegg.bsky.social, Luke Evans, Brett Scheffers, an incredible team of co-authors, and I took a deep dive into this question. we argue that thermal gradients are all around us—in space and time...

"North American bird declines are greatest where species are most abundant"--a stark, timely reminder of just how important conservation measures are. We need to save birds before it's too late. New research out by Cornell Lab of Ornithology & @abcbirds.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Job opportunity! Excited to share that we have an opening for a research technician position to help with our research on phenological shifts & species interactions in amphibian communities. (please help spread the word!) More details here: emdz.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

We're super excited to introduce a new article category for @asn-amnat.bsky.social: Inspiring perspectives. In a nutshell, we want these articles to spark lively scientific debates that will inspire future research directions in biology. More info here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

*** Academic BFD alert *** We just published a new global bird phylogeny. It synthesizes the work of thousands of researchers before us, and it will grow and improve over time. @snacktavish.bsky.social @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New paper now out! 🚀 Evolution isn't just about selection—it's about how each generation changes the environment for the next. We experimentally show evolutionary feedbacks in action in fruit flies. 🧵 (1/) @pnas.org #NSF #SupportNSF

The current #FeederWatch interactions dataset has grown to include just under 500,000 pairwise interactions! So many cool projects waiting to be done with this unique resource. FeederWatch data is always freely available feederwatch.org/explore/raw-...

Hot off the digital presses of the Highlands News-Sun: www.midfloridanewspapers.com/highlands_ne...

excited that @asn-amnat.bsky.social is adding a hot take category: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

Hot off the presses and so so thrilled. Thanks to @inaturalist.bsky.social + computer vision we found something beautifully simple: Red and orange flowers bloom later than all the other colors in the eastern United States. Paper here: authors.elsevier.com/a/1kwzh3QW8S...

❗CALL FOR PAPERS - SPECIAL ISSUE❗ Biological invasions in the context of global environmental change. Deadline for abstracts: 31 July For more details and how to apply -> https://www.oikosjournal.org/blog/call-papers-biological-invasions-context-global-environmental-change Please share around 😊

The ASN President’s Award is given to an outstanding paper in @asn-amnat.bsky.social in the past year. This is a tough process to read through and compare such diverse papers over a year. This year’s award goes to a paper by Lisa Buche et al www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... 9/N

Our paper is out, and it is distressing. Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Yayy 🌱🪲🐝🐌- A list of stellar ecologists and myself showed that (1) species interactions can be summarised at the guild level, except for a few critical species, (2) they occur along a continuum from positive-to-negative, and (3) they have relatively weak strength except between plants!

The insanity of being a fire ecologist in the epicenter of a major fire event, bags packed and ready to evacuate, watching active fire from my window, while taking media requests and explaining to the public, for the 100,000th time how climate change is largely responsible for this

A starter pack for people studying how human affect biodiversity and ecosystem functioning at global scale, across terrestrial and marine realms & conservation challenges. Sounds like Global Ecology ! sure I missed many people, reply to be added, and share to spread ! go.bsky.app/V6tN4cv 🧪🌍🦤🦑🪴

Hi #ESA2024! We currently have an exciting postdoc opportunity for theory/model development in plant-soil feedbacks. Please RT and see thread for details. Thank you! 🌱🍄(1/4)

Let's face it, the new frontier in community ecology is not space but TIME (do I hear some *GASPS*?)! In our new paper just out in Ecology Letters we propose a new conceptual and methodological framework to quantify and analyze this temporal dimension. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14481 (1/3)

Excited to share my review on community assembly synthesizing dynamical, informational & probabilistic approaches ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Glad to see this one out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/el… We show how higher-order interactions can arise from plant-soil feedback, and their strengths depend on both plant germination phenology and microbiome specificity. A fun one with Xinyi Yan and @volkerrudolf.bsky.social !

I defended my PhD! Had a lot of fun at Rice in the last five years. Hope my tie stays there for longer! Also happy to announce that I’ll soon start my Postdoc Fellowship at the Institute for Global Change Biology, University of Michigan!

This is finally happening—I’m defending my PhD!

This is insane

I’ve been thinking about this for years so I’m excited to see this finally out in print! Led by the brilliant @hengxingzou.bsky.social ⁦‪, you can read more about the importance of differentiating between types of priority effect. www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

It’s been an absolute pleasure working on this paper! Check it out!

I'm looking for a new PhD student to join my lab! We study the evolution of social dynamics using fruit flies. If you're an interested student with a background in studying behavior from an eco-evo perspective, please get in touch! @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social @asn-amnat.bsky.social

New preprint with Xinyi Yan and @volkerrudolf.bsky.social ! We bring time to higher-order interactions by showing how they emerge and change with germination phenology of plants in a mechanistic, multispecies model of plant-soil feedback.

New paper in #NatureEcoEvo led by former PhD student Dr. Mattheau Comerford in collaboration w/ S. Carroll, T. La, and me ... “Spatial sorting promotes rapid (mal)adaptation in the red-shouldered soapberry bug after hurricane-driven local extinctions" doi.org/10.1038/s415...

How do the consequences of phenological shifts interact with season length? Find out in our newest paper led by @hengxingzou.bsky.social in royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.....