Are you a university staff member? Tired? Stressed? Overworked? It will only take 5-6 mins to help independent researchers shine a light on the state of wellbeing in our universities. Results will be published and responses anonymous. Please help by adding your voice: nteu.info/census

Language complexity is more likely to evolve in small, isolated populations, a recent study shows. www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....

AES 2025 ECR Awards – Apply Now! Submit your best paper (preprints welcome!) for a chance to give a 30-min plenary at AES 2025 in Brisbane. Two categories: PhD and Postdoc Winners get $500 travel support + free rego 🔗 ausevo.com/2025_researc...

‪Join us on campus & online on Thursday, 7 Aug 2025 at 1pm for a seminar by Dr Emily Stringer & Dr Jarrod Sopniewski, Postdoctoral Research Fellows from the Centre for Conservation Ecology and Genomics at the University of Canberra. Details: rb.gy/x3t1fm

New paper out today in @pnas.org presenting near-complete phylogeny of the Grevilleoideae subfamily of Proteaceae plants, representing years of work and huge collaboration from an amazing team - ft. @marcelcardillo.bsky.social @hsauquet.bsky.social @austinmast.bsky.social and many others not on bsky

Why is there such variation in species diversity among regions? Work led by @alexskeels.bsky.social shows that the history of climate change driving expansion & contraction of biomes is at least as important as current environments. ‬https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2502129122

Please share: PhD scholarship opportunity in mathematical ecology on the value of information for improving ecological management, open to international students, with a great team @hugepossum.bsky.social, Katriona Shea, Kate Helmstedt, & me at UQ, Australia 🌍 🧮, study.uq.edu.au/study-option...

New preprint: we advertise DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly eco-evo-archaeo journals. 1/6 #AcademicPublishing #ecoevo #archaeology #EthicalPublishing #SocietyJournals #DiamondOpenAccess doi.org/10.32942/X24...

Great to get this paper out on macroevolutionary trends of the hyperdiverse southwest Australian and eastern Australian floras! @alexskeels.bsky.social Article is open access and can be downloaded here: lnkd.in/gaxzYppQ

fiery effulgences, infernally superb

Macroevolutionary analysis of polysynthesis shows that language complexity is more likely to evolve in small, isolated populations Bromham et al., PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Is language complexity more likely to evolve in small, isolated populations? We test this idea using global occurrence of one particular form of morphological complexity - polysynthesis (complex word forms that embody whole phrases) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

#ICCB2025 I'll be presenting our work on "Over the Horizon" extinction risk forecasting for proactive conservation planning at 10:30am on Monday, in M2. It will be minus 3 degrees in Canberra tonight so looking forward to escaping to Brizzie for a few days...

WE DID IT, FOLKS A song for the entomologists of the USDA m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYSI...

Open letter: The ANU executive is planning a new round of unnecessary and damaging cuts and forced redundancies. We are asking staff to sign this open letter calling on the executive to cancel planned CMPs and to be transparent about ANU’s finances. ANU colleagues please sign and share widely.

ANU colleagues, stand up and protect your workplace and each other. Let's stop the reputational and psycho-social damage being done by the disproportionately heavy-handed response of the executive. Please sign and share widely in your networks. #ourANU

More great PhD opportunities, this time with @felicitymeakins.bsky.social study.uq.edu.au/study-option...

We love it when art and science meet to create something spectacular! ✨ These amazing projections at Mt Stromlo Observatory were produced by ANU art and design students for Enlighten Festival. science.anu.edu.au/news-events/...

Really sad to report that our friend and colleague Richard Fortey passed away this morning after a short battle with cancer. We’ll all miss his wit and wisdom. Here he is checking out a dino footprint we found while filming together on the Isle of Wight

This study confirms what Robert May once said: "As we move from the furries and featheries, down through the innumerable species of insects, and on down to bacteria and viruses, sentimental concern does not merely wane. It changes sign.”

Australian Researchers, If you want to support @arc-tracker.bsky.social being awarded a Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science, sign this letter of support. forms.gle/WxfVjk9JaGpn... Q: "Are they eligible?", A: "Let's find out" Sign, repost & send the link to colleagues. Word of mouth. Do it!

I'm very happy to announce I just published a paper from my post doc with Gavin Thomas in @natureecoevo.bsky.social! So if you're interested in #macroevolution, #phylogenetics and sexual size dimorphism (SSD), strap in doi.org/10.1038/s415...

If you are interested in applying population genomics, experimental genetics, and innovative breeding to dissect the genetic basis of resilience in future environments, please contact me. You will join my lab and a wonderful team of researchers from the ARC training centre in predictive breeding.

Genotype/phenotype distinction is critical in evolutionary theory (e.g. Central Dogma: DNA<->RNA->protein). Languages don’t have separate genotype & phenotype – so do they break evolutionary theory? Or can we still apply biological methods to language data? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A bit late to the Bluesky party, but I'll start with a plug for our non-technical, non-mathematical, introductory text on macroevolution & macroecology. It probably won't give you many answers to big questions about biodiversity. But hopefully it will give you the tools to ask good questions.

@puttert.bsky.social and I are organising the ANU Research School of Biology's Ecology and Evolution seminar series for 2025 🌏🗣. Any researchers based in Oz 🇦🇺 and keen to connect with #TeamCanberra should reach out! We have also budget for travel 🛩

If you are in Melbourne on Friday Nov 15 and like to think about connecting molecular evolution to macroevolution, come along to this seminar "On the mutability of species" (title borrowed from a draft title for the book that would become Origin of Species). events.unimelb.edu.au/MIG/event/43...

New edited book on Speciation is now out. m.cshperspectives.cshlp.org/cgi/collecti... Thanks to Katie Peichel who led the team of Editors, and the folks at Cold Spring Harbor Press

Lindell's up there with my other fave writers from evo bio, Levins & Lewontin, but not only is she much funnier, she's also *significantly* less worried about dialectics, so I can confidently say this is worth reading despite the fact I haven't, yet. You should though! And all her other stuff too

Mutation rate is central to understanding #evolution Check out this new #AJB essay by Lindell Bromham! doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany

Hi Minister Jason Clare 👋 We fund fewer than half as many basic, blue-sky, ARC discovery projects than in 2010. The collapse has continued in the last 2 years. Please, increase ARC funding for discovery research like all the reviews recommend. Data▶️ docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

And after quite a ride, we finally have the first chapter of my former PhD student Matheus Moroti published in Journal of Biogeography, with Fernando R Silva and @alexskeels.bsky.social Congrats Matheus, this is a big achievement! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Seminar on interdisciplinary approaches to understanding language endangerment now available online: doi.org/10.52843/cas...

Language diversity is facing a global crisis, just like biodiversity. Can methods from biology help us understand patterns of language loss? Join this seminar for small & large-scale studies: Interdisciplinary approaches to understanding language endangerment, 11 Sep cassyni.com/events/3g43L...

Islands are engines of biodiversity and have played a key role in understanding biological evolution. Is the same true for language diversity? Is there an island biogeography of languages? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Islands have played a pivotal role in evolutionary biology, focussing theory & providing “laboratories” of evolutionary change. Islands generate biodiversity, but island endemics are vulnerable to loss. Would we see similar patterns for language diversity? We set out to find out... rdcu.be/dS3Xp

Postdoc at Australian National University in molecular evolution and macroevolution - applications close this week!

Are you keen to develop a molecular view of macroevolution? Or a macroevolutionary approach to molecular evolution? Apply for this postdoc and join our research group at the Australian National University. Happy to hear your ideas for research - get in touch by email if interested. Apply by 29 Feb

Looking for a postdoc in molecular evolution & macroevolution? Interested in connecting rates of genomic change to patterns of biodiversity? Come to the Australian National University & work with us! jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/postdoc... 📸Robin Eckerman (cover from Origins of Biodiversity OUP 2019)

Interested in doing a PhD in ecology, evolution or conservation? Are you a high achieving Australian or New Zealand student (Australian or New Zealand citizen or permanent resident)? The Division of Ecology & Evolution at ANU have some domestic PhD scholarships available.

This is a special round so you need to apply before the end of January and you must be able to enrol by 30 April 2024 if you win a PhD scholarship. Contact one of our world-leading research group leaders to express your interest. biology.anu.edu.au/research/div... biology.anu.edu.au/study/phd-mp...

@ecdi.bsky.social is on B-Sky! As a collective, we aim to understand the drivers & processes of diversification in Oceania from first settlement ~60k years ago- using archaeology, linguistics, history, anthropology, ecology, genetics, ontogeny & philosophy evolutionofculturaldiversity.anu.edu.au