How do we manage data deficient species? Luke Bonifacio and colleagues have found lots of gaps in the management of these taxa but after receiving some data practitioners were more likely to specifically manage these species. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Facundo Romani and co-authors have investigated the role of transcription factors in order to uncover the ancestral roles that they played in early stages of land plant evolution. academic.oup.com/plphys/advan...

Storme De Scally et al describe how genomic and biological characterisation of bacteriophages help us better understand bacteria-phage ecological and evolutionary dynamics in natural and synthetic communities. @mikejmcd.bsky.social @jeremyjbarr.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Luciano Beheregaray and colleagues have put together a special issue on genetic rescue. The articles identify opportunities and limitations and underscore its potential to improve resilience, adaptive capacity, and the long- term persistence of biodiversity. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

can we disentangle the effects of clonality and hybridity and quantify the relative degree to which these characteristics contribute to differences in mitochondrial function, organismal performance and fitness? Randy Klabacka and co. suggest some strategies royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Rethinking mitochondrial heteroplasmy: selection, conflict and adaptation url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Can we improve our understanding and predict species' invasion processes? Andhika Putra urges invasion biologists to integrate genomic and phenotypic data into multivariate frameworks to better understand their respective roles in driving the invasion process. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

Exposure to an antidepressant can affect spatial learning in male guppies pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.... @jackmanera.bsky.social @bbmwong.bsky.social

How can Australia's area-based conservation be more strategically targeted in order to contribute to achieving the biodiversity goals? James Watson and co-authors tackle this question here: conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

A recent study on connectivity between populations of the Red-Tailed Tropic bird suggests that occasional long-distance movements between Great Barrier Reef and northwestern Australia occurs. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

How will evolution affect survival and yields of common fisheries species? A recent study by Jan Kozlowski, @djmmeeg.bsky.social @craig-white.bsky.social found that fish will evolve to survive warmer temperatures AND smaller sizes, reducing fisheries yields by ~50% www.science.org/doi/full/10....

New paper out in #marinepollutionbulletin from my PhD research on using thermal imaging drones to spot entanglements in fur seals! OA www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @monashuniversity.bsky.social @monashbiol.bsky.social @phillipislandnatureparks

How do organisms maintain fitness in a fluctuating environment? @upama.bsky.social and colleagues found that trade-offs in reproductive allocation in mosquito fish depend on sex and age. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirec... @bbmwong.bsky.social @mikejennions.bsky.social

Brooke Zanco and co-authors found flies fed low cholesterol diets have greater levels of gut permeability and epithelial cell disorganisation than those fed high cholesterol diets. Lifespan was maximised on a high cholesterol diet www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Andre Alves et al used isogenic lines of D. melanogaster to analyse the source of genetic variation for egg laying plasticity. They looked at how ovariole number, food intake, and protein-to-egg conversion efficiency impacted fecundity. academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

A recent review demonstrates that rivers exert a pervasive influence on seabird ecology. The authors conclude that rivers and their plumes are critical coastal features shaping seabird habitat use, diet, health, and demographic outcomes. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

Check out the press release on how locality data from social media can capture faster and broader expansion of an #invasive #butterfly species in Asia and Australia. (6/6) @monashscience.bsky.social www.monash.edu/science/news...

Weijie Wen and colleagues highlight that intricate gut phage bacteria-bacteria crosstalk may dictate disease severity, offering new insights into personalized treatments for Crohn’s disease. www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Sally Potter et al use museum specimens to study the connectiveness and genetic diversity of rock wallabies in the arid areas of Australia. Island populations have low genetic diversity compared to more recently fragmented mainland populations. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Do little penguins always forage in the same areas? Lilia Guillet et al tracked 422 little penguins over 13 years and found penguins consistently spent more time in the productive areas but in poor years they foraged farther from the colony, with lower breeding success. hal.science/hal-05495230...

How big is small when talking about patch size? And does it change if you are looking at biodiversity versus ecosystem services? David Deane and colleagues describe an objective method for discerning patch size in terms of ecological phenomena. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Vagrancy is the occurrence of an individual out-side its regular, known geographical range. Simon Gorta et al studied gadfly petrels, and found potential for vagrancy events to provide insight when assessing seabirds as indicators of environmental change onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

A very cool molecular machine, the bacteriophage JS1, has taught us several surprising things doi.org/10.1128/mbio... #MicroSky @stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social @monashbiol.bsky.social @macsys.bsky.social

JS1 is a #phage that does not respect host species boundaries, but it does look stylish as it binds, enters in and kills them all. doi.org/10.1128/mbio... @macsys.bsky.social @staph-papers.bsky.social @monashbiol.bsky.social

#IDWGS Dr Lesley Alton studies how animal adapt to climate warming @monashbiol.bsky.social Her advice to future scientists: “Be curious and take maths.” Read more 👉 www.monash.edu/science/news...

PopBio on the Dark Side shines a light on population biology researchers based in the Asia-Pacific, i.e., the ‘dark side’ when seminars are streaming from other time zones. We meet on the last Thursday of every month 1pm AEST. forms.gle/gPZmcBnFYcWk... or follow us @pop-bio.bsky.social

Our team at @monashbiol.bsky.social have had some exciting grant wins over Dec/Jan! First up, Honours student Emily Blackburn was awarded the Daniel Gilmore Scholarship in support of her research on the critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum: www.biosis.com.au/emily-blackb... #ozmammals

PhD student Tucksaorn (Orn) Bhummakasikara was awarded a Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment for her project "Genomics to inform recovery and management of the threatened Australian Pookila"! @monashbiol.bsky.social #ozmammals #ozrodents

PhD student Camille Kynoch (cosupervised in our lab) was awarded a Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment for her project "Breeding on Borrowed Time: Managing Flatback Sea Turtles Amid Climate Driven Male Scarcity". @monashbiol.bsky.social www.ecolsoc.org.au/grants-award...

What's more fun than writing this paper is the brilliant minds of @plosbiology.org @roliroberts.bsky.social coming up with ways to deal with BlueSky's censorship. Men with surfboards, could this paper be anymore aussie? @ceb-uwa.bsky.social @monashbiol.bsky.social @biologyanu.bsky.social

We know bees are important, but do we know how to identify them? Robert Moore, Vanessa Kellerman, Scarlett Howard and co-authors have a new web-based tool that makes bee identification simple, rapid, and accessible. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Additive genetic variance for fitness maintained by balancing selection url: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

Juan Valbuena-Fernandez and co-authors find that urgent integration of climate projections into conservation planning, alongside enhanced protections against illegal trade, is critical to safeguarding bluetongue lizard species.

How well can we replicate physiological responses across species and across universities? Lesley Alton & co. found that metabolic scaling relationship and the mass-independent rates of energy use in response to food restriction was consistent across universities. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41552934/

Information sharing matters. This is open access. Isabelle Onley, Phil Cassey and Melodie McGeoch are Australian.

January issue: Perspective from Melodie McGeoch on how ecological drivers are shaping terrestrial biodiversity change in Antarctica. 🧪🌎 Web link: go.nature.com/3ZgxzSu Readcube: rdcu.be/eZInQ

When, and how, should we do a Rapid Evidence Assessment? Angus Webb Carly Cook & co-authors provide a standardized definition that will improve transparency and facilitate decisions about the appropriate levels of rigor required for environmental decision-making www.proquest.com/openview/146...

How do interactions between temperature, urban gradient, and light type impact the phototactic response in native and non-native bees? Emily Watson and co-authors found honeybees were faster under all conditions. doi.org/10.1016/j.ji...

Why don't we use behavioural ecotoxicological studies in environmental management? Michael Bertram & colleagues assess whether behavioral measures are relevant at the population level. They conclude that, yes, they are and they are underutilised. doi.org/10.1021/acs.... @bbmwong.bsky.social

You have heard of the gut microbiome but what do we know about plant microbiomes? Christopher Blake & colleagues examined the bacteria in the rhizosphere of Canola and suggest scope for better design interventions that support sustainable crop production. doi.org/10.1016/j.bc...

Was Darwin wrong? Hermaphrodites found to be more energy efficient than animals with two sexes monash.edu/science/news...

Can we really train bacteriophages to selectively target certain bacteria? Natasha Torriero-Smith and co-authors explore this question and propose some solutions to help drive the field forward. doi.org/10.1016/j.mi... @jeremyjbarr.bsky.social

Is hermaphrodism less common in animals because it is energetically more costly? George Jarvis and @djmmeeg.bsky.social have analysed 536 species of marine invertebrates and found that hermaphrodites require approximately 27% less energy than gonochores on average. doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

How is behavioural diversity affected by human-induced change? Oded Berger-Tal and co-authors review how anthropogenic disturbances can impact behavioural diversity through the evolutionary forces of selection, flow, mutation and drift. doi.org/10.1098/rspb... @bbmwong.bsky.social

Eduardo Flores-Sandoval and colleagues propose that the gene MpARF2 and the hormone auxin work together to providing signalling information to surrounding differentiating cells—a game changer for embryophyte evolution doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Travis Park & Co-authors investigate the optimal evolutionary path in aquatic mammal feeding and find novel morphological innovations can shift evolutionary trajectories from optimal paths yet still result in highly diverse and successful animal lineages. doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

70 species of marine megafauna found to have high vulnerability to anthropogenic threats. Overall, temperature extremes and plastics and other solid waste were rated as affecting the largest proportion of populations. doi.org/10.1111/cobi...

Can we improve the efficiency of photosynthesis in C4 plants such as sorghum and maize? Maria Ermakov, Robert Sharwood and Robert Furbank review and highlight future possibilities. doi.org/10.1111/nph....

Till Ramm and colleagues analyse next-generation data in a transdisciplinary framework, and demonstrate the benefits of integrating a paleontological perspective into conservation-oriented studies. Current Biology cell.com/current-biol...

As your car tyres wear down, they leave microscopic particles that can end up in waterways and are toxic to a range of aquatic species. María Angeles Gonzalez-Vazquez and co. review current knowledge on the ecotoxicity of selected tyre-related chemicals. doi.org/10.1016/j.aq...